Homemade Valentine's Marshmallows

"Pink marshmallows? For real?"

Jackson wrinkled his nose, but he wasn't fooling me. His school friends may have socialized him to abhor all things pink, but his best friend is a girl, so he's no stranger to pastels. Besides, I've never been a fan of the boy-versus-girl peer pressure.

"Yes, we're making pink marshmallows for Valentine's Day," I said.

I had in mind a recipe we saw an episode of "Good Eats," a cooking show hosted by Alton Brown. It's a favorite "family time" show in our house, right up there with "Mythbusters," "The Simpsons," and "Dirty Jobs."

One time, 5-year-old Nolan announced that he was going to be a chef when he grew up.

"Or maybe a cook, like Alton Brown?" I asked.

Nolan's eyes grew wide: "Alton Brown is growed-ed up?"

He wasn't being sarcastic. The Food Network star's combination of geeky science (a nutritional anthropologist is a frequent guest) and goofy fun (flatulent yeast sock puppet, anyone?) are ideal for the kid crowd.

I wanted to give Brown's homemade marshmallows a try -- with a Valentine's Day twist of pink. (For his recipe, search for "homemade marshmallows" on www.foodnetwork.com).

If you bake, you may know that liquid food coloring often creates a pastel shade (as opposed to food coloring gel or paste, which gives a truer color). So red liquid food coloring added to white icing -- or in our case, homemade marshmallow fluff -- would turn pink.

I'd already seen handmade marshmallow squares in food magazines, but Brown gave us ideas for more fun -- using candy molds to make bunny 'mallows, piping the pre-set goo into lines for cutting into minis, or using cookie cutters and colored sugar to make DIY Peeps.

I decided to use an icing bag to write the boys' initials, making "J," "N," and "A" 'mallows sized to fit inside a cocoa mug. A light dusting with a combination of cornstarch and powdered sugar, and they were ready to float atop some hot chocolate.

"Pink can be pretty cool when it's in marshmallows, huh, guys?" I asked.

Their reply was as uniform as their hot cocoa mustaches: "Sure!"