Been to The Big E lately? It’d be hard to miss the pillowy gobs of fluff being enjoyed across the fairgrounds.
It comes right from The Vermont Marshmallow Company.
Owner Alexx Shuman, aka the marshmallow girl, never thought her life would include spearheading a marshmallow business, but once the idea came to fruition, “it just made such perfect sense.”
“The short story is that my background is a pastry chef and a marshmallow kid. I am a classically trained chef and I spent my childhood sneaking into the pantry in the middle of the night to eat marshmallows — in a lot of ways it’s like I never could have predicted this,” she shared with MassLive.
Now, after securing a tight-knit community of consumers back home in South Burlington, Vermont, Shuman returned for her booth’s second year at The Big E.
Some of her handmade treats at the fair have included the S’mores Macaron, the Fluff Choco Taco and more — which not only have caught the attention of fairgoers — but thousands on social media.
You can see some of the Vermont Marshmallow Company’s food in viral Big E TikTok’s here and here.
The viral traction has created an influx of curious fair food lovers, to which Shuman said has floored her and her team.
“Social media is very much a wild horse and you just kind of have to be ready if it comes and it’s like, ‘Will that happen again next year?’ I don’t know. ‘Should I plan for it to happen?’ I don’t know. But I would say that it keeps things exciting,” she said.
The popularity has also caused the business at the fair to sell out of items. As customer demand goes up, the more the business gets back to creating its handmade sweets.
“It’s really exciting to have that level of attention and when we sell out. I say, ‘Oh gosh, it’s going to take us two days to restock this,’ but it’s because we’re not cutting any corners and we’re not taking any shortcuts,” she added.
Even the quality of the company’s food caught the attention of MassLive in the past.
“It combines the wonderful sugar cloud-like texture of a French macaron with the caramelized gooeyness of a toasted marshmallow. Then there’s the little bit of melted chocolate to add a nice little bit of depth to the sweet flavors,” MassLive’s Nick O’Malley wrote in a Big E food review about the S’Macaron.
He compared the dessert to what he imagine eating a cloud in a cartoon feels like, if you can wrap your head around it.
Coming off the success of this years fair, Shuman will return in 2024 ready for more, hoping to conjure up new creations that will give people an “amazing, unique dessert experience that you might not find at another fair.”
Currently, the Vermont Marshmallow Company is located behind the Vermont building on the fairgrounds.
You can also follow the business on Instagram and TikTok.
