Making a fluffy Coca-Cola is pretty simple: you line the inside of a glass with marshmallows and then fill it with Coca-Cola. What happens after you make it in front of the camera is a lot more complex.
I made a fluffy Coca-Cola for Annie’s Cafe, a video series in which I recreate the internet’s favorite sweet and complicated coffees. While a drink consisting of soda and a whipped marshmallow is, of course, not coffee, my version, which includes a cold foam of oat milk and a splash of vanilla syrup, aligns with the spirit of the series: It’s sweet, drinkable, and trending online.
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Long story short: I posted this video on Food52’s Instagram and TikTok accounts. Commenters (of which there were thousands) immediately had all sorts of opinions, from suspicions that I was sponsored by the marshmallow industry (I wish! Give me my money!) to claims that I was promoting unhealthy eating. From licensed physicians to anonymous detractors, my harmless Fluffy Coke video became the talk of the internet and the Food52 office.
Then, to make matters worse (or better), someone sent me a link to a New York Post article where my fluffy Coca-Cola duck face portrait was the cover image.
Photograph by the New York Post
The article smugly called fluffy Coke “the drink of the summer” while simultaneously comparing it to “diabetes in a cup.” Somehow, my face, along with a handful of other viral videos from fellow fluffy Coke enthusiasts, became the center of an anti-sugar debate. The article reached my mother, and now my family lovingly calls me a “fluffy Coke celebrity.”
What baffles me about the marshmallow hate is its reliance on anti-sugar arguments. When you compare a Coke with marshmallows to any other dessert (say, a few scoops of ice cream or a brownie a la mode), it’s not that different in terms of “health,” whatever that means to you. Also, people’s insistence that marshmallows are made of “chemicals” or “poison” leads me to ask: Have you never had a S’more? A processed chocolate bar? Have you never known joy?
If you want to learn how to make your own fluffy Coca-Cola with homemade marshmallows, I have the perfect recipe for you. Plus, you can use it in a wide variety of other sweet treats like these homemade Hostess cupcakes, a S’mores chocolate cake, or oatmeal cream puffs.
Happy fluffiness!
Do you have your own opinions on fluffy Coke? Let us know in the comments below.
