The Thousands

Marshmallows have replaced cupcakes as our favourite sugar ticket to nostalgia lane. And the mallow matriarch is Gena Karpf. She’s been around on the weekend market circuit for a while, and has recently set up a shopfront in the burbs.

While Epping is far from central, it seems only fitting to make the journey to Sweetness. At a crux in her life, mid-westerner Gena took a walk up the Pacific Crest wilderness trail from the California/Mexico border to Oregon. Two months into her expedition she met a fellow walker from Castle Hill and ended up marrying him. Fast-forward a decade and she’s joined him in his homeland and is making marshmallows by the soft gooey kilo.**It’s not all about the marshmallows though. There are many other distractions, like brownies, muffins, cookies, English toffee, spiced pecans and macaroons, and the bulk of it is gluten-free. Wherever possible, wheat flour is substituted, but they taste so good you’d never know. It’s revolutionary: allergy sensitive products that taste like the real deal.