AIM: To confirm that Marmite, when whipped, goes white: as claimed by me for so long that I cannot remember if I made it up or not.
APPARATUS: Small (but surprisingly expensive) jar of Marmite. A bowl. A fork. Lots of men with strong wrists.
METHOD: The Marmite was scooped into a bowl with a fork, and then energetically whipped by yours truly for about five minutes. Having got meringue wrist at this point, the bowl was passed to other gentlemen to show their whipping prowess.
RESULTS: After a few minutes the mixture was getting noticeably lighter. Though slow, by the time the fourth man had his way with the bowl, it was clearly changing colour. It was also taking on an even more glossy sheen and increasing a touch in volume. This point was reached after 15 minutes (note the difference in colour of the marmite on the fork to that in the bowl)
After continued whipping the mixture continued to lighten. After about 30 minutes it reached the colour of butterscotch angel delight (or just butterscotch). Further whipping however increased the glossy sheen but it looked unlikely that we would improve on barley white and get to a pure white.
A second experiment to see if the taste as well as colour was attempted. Whilst many people in a open test claimed that the light Marmite (or Marmite Grand Cru as it had become dubbed) was less bitter, in a blind taste test no-one could tell the difference.
CONCLUSION: With the equipment (and wrists) at hand we did not manage to make the Marmite go white. Nevertheless reaching a state of gloss Barley White Dulux was enough to convince people that the story was, like most of my stories, not a complete fabrication. Furthermore that Marmite Grand Cru takes up more space than Marmite, we suggest the Marmite company take it on as a secondary special edition which they could make even more of a killing on.