Hey Reddit,
I want to make the Funfetti Recipe by ENYAWREKLAW but his recipe calls for Marshmallow (FA) however I will only have (TPA). Will this make a big difference or can I get away with it ?
Thank you in advance you guys are awesome!
Always substitute for whatever you have. When you finally get the missing flavor, mix up another batch and voila, you've learned something new. I've subbed and ended up liking the substitute better than the real thing.
There are a lot of flavors that are interchangeable between different companies, marshmallow isn't one of them! It won't ruin the mix using TPA instead of FA because most marshmallows are good, but the flavor profile won't match what the original creator had intended.
I've used both FA and TPA marshmallow in Funfetti. Not much difference if you ask me. To be honest I think I remember enjoying the TPA marshmallow version a little more. There were several months in between the two bottles though.
Just to add a technical layer to the responses. The natural (or 'natural' in the case of marshmallow) flavour will consist of dozens, possibly hundreds, of individual flavour chemicals. The skill of the flavourist is in identifying which ones are necessary to make the characteristic flavour they seek, and variations on those.
Just as no two strawberry varieties or hamburgers taste identical, they are doing something a little bit like plant breeders or chefs do when trying to create a particular flavour but they are also trying to simplify the flavour as we know it. The more faithfully the original is recreated, the more expensive it will be to produce and, of course, some of those naturally occurring elements might not even add anything good to the mix.
So there can be, and are, enormous differences between similar flavours produced by different companies, and it is down to the skill and taste of the flavourist and the price point they have to work to. TFA has some really interesting pages on this if you dive into their hobby pages.
These differences have knock-on effects in mixes, because some chemicals change a lot depending on concentration, so how they end up depends on what else is in the mix too.