THREE years ago, if you were after gourmet marshmallows in Gwent you would be hard pushed to find any.

Save for going online and ordering some in, homemade marshmallows were something you wouldn’t be able to find in the supermarket or even at local speciality markets.

But when Charlotte Goodwin, from Newport, decided to try her hand at making and selling confectionary straight from her own kitchen all that changed.

“I used to work as a merchandiser but they made redundancies about two years ago,” Ms Goodwin, 37, said.

“I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do next. I had a discussion with my partner about what to do and we thought about retraining or stay in merchandising.”

That’s when the idea of making confectionary for money came about.

“Then I thought about starting my own business, she said. “I have always been creative and I work with my hands a lot. So I was looking into different things and thought I could do something in the line of food.”

She said she had always dabbled with a bit of bakery and cakes and had always loved it. And, like many, she said she definitely has a sweet tooth rather than savoury.

Two years on and Ms Goodwin is running the successful The Welsh Confection – a business specialising in handmade sweet treats including nut brittle, marshmallow, honeycomb and – a recent addition – candied orange peel.

Her stand at the Monmouthshire food festival, which came to Caldicot castle earlier this month, was truly a sight – beautiful pastel colours and ribbons made the treats look as much fancy as they do tasty.

“I taught myself,” she said. “I got a few cookery books and tried out recipes from them and also recipes from online.

“It was just about experimenting to see what worked well and what tasted good.”

She said it took a while, but the experimenting allowed her to make the most of her creativity and experiment with flavours and designs of the finished product.

She started off doing the marshmallows first which look so unlike any you’ll find in the commercial bags and tubs in the supermarket.

“A lot of people often don’t know you can make marshmallow yourselves or have different flavours,” she explains.

“People who don’t usually like shop-bought marshmallow have said they enjoyed it and it melts in the mouth.”

The flavours she makes are both unique and tasty but nothing too bizarre. The marshmallow range includes orange and dark chocolate, Sicilian lemon, rosewater and pistachio, almond and coconut, raspberry, vanilla bean and mint and dark chocolate.

A special flavour for Christmas – although lucky for fans it can still be bought through her website – is the gingerbread flavoured marshmallow.

The process to make the marshmallow – which is essentially sugar, egg whites and gelatine – begins with boiling up some water and sugar and golden syrup on a hob.

“I leave it to get to a soft boil,” she said.

“Then when that’s doing that I soak some gelatine in some water and then whip up the egg whites.

“Once the marshmallow sugar syrup gets to the right temperature, I slowly pour it into the softened gelatine as it is mixing.

“I whisk it for about 12 minutes and then leave it to set overnight.”

She said she can never accurately predict exactly what flavour is doing well.

“At the moment the raspberry and the mint dark chocolate is doing really well.

“There are definitely trends, you can’t really predict what’s going to be popular.

“In the past the most popular has been rose water and pistachio but people’s favourites change from week to week.”

After initially mastering the marshmallows, Ms Goodwin then moved on to making brittle and then honeycomb, which she describes as “nice and simple”.

She does various kinds of nut brittle – a plain cashew brittle and then a spiced version which has paprika and cinnamon as well as coffee and walnut, maple and pecan and a dairy-free hazelnut praline.

Her most recent addition to her range of confectionary is fresh candied orange peel which can also come dipped in chocolate.

She first started selling her produce at Abergavenny market where she has remained a regular. She also does food festivals – including the most recent Abergavenny food festival last year which welcomed thousands.

It is clear people in Gwent have an appetite for her sweet treats which always sell well at the festivals and can make thoughtful gifts.

To check out the range visit etsy.com/uk/shop/thewelshconfection