How the Iconic Marshmallow Peeps Are Made

The informational channel The Process showed how Marshmallow Peeps, the iconic Easter treat, are made. In the early years, the sugar and gelatin mixture was hand-piped into little birds with wings. Once the process was automated in 1955, however, their wings had to be clipped.

Before 1953, every peep took 27 hours. Workers squeezed marshmallow from fabric pastry bags by hand, shaped each chick one at a time, and waited overnight for them to dry. …Then one engineer built a machine that compressed the entire process into 6 minutes. The design worked, but it came with a condition. The chicks had to lose their wings. 

The elimination of the wings compressed the process down to six minutes. And with further technological advances, the Peeps became less individual and more homogeneous through mass production. Yet Peeps are always there, whether they’re wanted or not.

Same colored sugar, same two black eyes staring the same direction. A product that is 90% air made in 6 minutes from a recipe unchanged in 70 years. We do not reach for them because they are exceptional. We reach for them because they are there. Same candy, same basket, same time every year. …Two eyes that always look the same way. And wings that never came back.

via Neatorama