Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies

You can find the recipe for these cookies at favfamilyrecipes.com.  Jonathan couldn't resist trying some of the dough and it reminded him strongly of Gee's Chocolate cookies.  So he dug out that old recipe and compared them... they are very similar! 

This is basically a one bowl recipe.  But I really should have used my stand mixer - like you should for any cookie recipe. 

It took a lot of upper arm body strenght to mix in the dry ingredients.  I nearly broke my wooden spoon doing it!

When it came time to add the milk I figured I'd better break out the hand mixer.  But as you can see below, this dough was too much for it.

I finally got it all mixed together (and off the beaters).

The recipe says to roll 1 teaspoon of dough to make each cookie.  I made mine bigger than a teaspoon!  I would have been rolling and baking all day to cook up that dough if I just used a teaspoon.  I used an ice cream scoop, which is probably about a tablespoon or maybe two.  That worked well. 

Straight out of the oven I added the marshmallows (four for each cookie) and put them back in the oven for a minute or so.  I have no idea how you'd get 4 marshmallows on a teaspoon size cookie.

Once I was into the swing of things on the baking side I got the icing going.  It's a simple buttercream chocolate frosting. 

The hand mixer works much better on icing.

I loaded the icing into a zip top bag and drizzled it over the cookies as they came out of the oven.  

 

Even after several days these cookies were still soft and yummy.  If you're like Jonathan and don't like marshmallows, just leave them off.  They are very good chocolate cookies and the glaze is delish.  But overall the very best way to eat them is when they are still warm!

Homemade Twix

This recipe came from bunsinmyoven.  I really like Twix so when I saw that Karly called these a grownup twix bar I knew I had to try them.  The shortbread isn't quite right in terms of matching a Twix, not sweet enough or crisp enough.  But still very tasty.  The shortbread is just butter, flour and a little bit of sugar.  I thought about increasing the amount of sugar because I often find shortbread too bland but I figured with the caramel and chocolate on top I wouldn't need it. 

I mixed it up in my stand mixer...

Then pressed it into an 8x8" pan. 

It went into the oven for 20 minutes.  While it baked I got the ingredients together for the caramel. 

I held off starting the caramel until the crust was almost done because I needed pour over the crust as soon as the caramel was done.  I had just started melting the butter when the crust was done.

I let it boil for 5 minutes, stirring all the time - except when I took this picture  :-)

Then I moved it off the heat and mixed it vigorously for three minutes.  Doesn't that look yummy?!

I poured it over the shortbread and moved on to the chocolate layer. 

The recipe calls for fleur de sel... it's  a special kind of salt.  But I decided to just use kosher (coarse) salt.  I don't know if it made any difference to the recipe but it didn't hurt it. 

After sprinkling the chocolate chips on the top, putting it back in the oven for a minute I smoothed them out...done!

I stuck it in the frig to set up.. look at those layers.  Looks so yummy!

After it had set up in the frig for a while I pulled it out to cut it into pieces and had a taste.

It was very good.  I packed up most of them to give away for Christmas.  I would have happily eaten them all myself.  I really liked the caramel layer. 

If you like Twix, caramel or just a good dessert I'd recommend these.

Bake 52 Week 50 Glazed Chocolate Cream Roll

 

I've never made a roll cake before... this was surprisingly easy.  I prepped the ingredients.

I was careful to grease the parchment paper but I was missing one corner - it torn unevenly... the cake did stick there a bit.  But otherwise the cake came out easily.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I had left the eggs out all day to come to room temperature.  It wasn't supposed to be all day but we lost power for several hours before church so I wasn't able to make this until after church (when luckily our power was back on).  But I heard from Alton Brown that warm eggs are more elastic so they whip up better.

Here's the egg mixture at the start of mixing it.

Here it is when I decided it was whipped enough.

Fluffy!  I sifted the dry ingredients in...

Then I folded them in.  It took a surprising amount of time to get the dry ingredients fully incorporated just using the folding technique.  Then I spread it in the prepared pan...

Into the oven.  While the cake cooked (which only took about 15 minutes) I got started on the filling. 
The filling has 1-1/4 cups (almost a full 7 oz jar) marshmallow fluff... I hate working with marshmallow fluff... it ends up on everything and I can never seem to get it out of the measuring cup.  This time I decided this time I'd get smart.  I used my handy plunger measuring cup and sprayed it with no-stick first. 

Then I loaded it up with marshmallow.  After I'd whipped up the butter and sugar I dumped in the marshmallow.

Amazingly the marshmallow fluff came right out!

Look at how well that worked...  The filling whipped up really well, but really thick.  It also was a bit grainy in texture, although very tasty!

Once the cake was done I was able to get it out of the pan very easily - once I was able to get ahold of the hot pan with the thick hot pads!

I wrapped it up parchment paper as directed and let it sit for 15 minutes.  I think I over cooked the cake because it cracked a bit when I rolled it. 

After letting it sit for 15 minutes I unrolled it and started (trying) to spread the filling.  Jonathan heard my sounds of frustration because the cake kept moving and came over to see if he could help.  He was a huge help.  Between the two of us we finally got it all spread out and covering (most) of the cake.  It was really thick!

I rolled it back up (with out the parchment paper).  I could really see that it was a bit over done at that point. 

 

I was supposed to let it sit for 30 minutes before glazing it but I didn't.   I got started on the glaze (which was rediculously easy) right away and as soon as it was done I dumped it all over the top of my roll.

There was more than enough glaze to cover any inperfections in the cake!  I didn't even wait for the glaze to set before I cut myself a piece.



Jonathan was reminising about how much this reminded him of the ice cream cake his mom usually makes at Christmas time.  But since there was marshmallow in this one he wouldn't try it.  Oh, well... His loss!

If you want to give this a try check out Michelle's blog for the full recipe.

PS Sorry all my pictures are yellow tinge... I guess that's what happens when your flash on your iPhone goes off!

Cookies 'n Creme Fudge

 

I got this recipe off Allrecipes.  It's very simple but very rich! 

I prepped the pan and cookies first.  I went a little overboard on the cookies.  It only called for 3 cups but I went with 4  :-)

Then I melted the white chocolate with sweetened condensed milk.

I dumped in the cookies...

 and mixed thoroughly.

Then into the prepared pan

After letting it sit in the frig for a couple of hours it was ready to cut up.

I tried to cut it in very small squares because it is very rich but tasty!  A very easy fudge.

Gooey Sweet Coconut Chex Mix

I came across this recipe at Jamie Cooks It Up.  It sounded just like a treat that someone has brought up snowmobiling the last few years.  I find it very addictive so I couldn't resist giving this recipe a try.  Now that I've made it (and eaten way too much of it) I can't remember if it is the same as what I was looking for but it's sure good!

It's really easy...  Measure out the dry ingredients - Corn Chex, Golden Grahams, slivered almonds and sweetened coconut. 

Note to self... Or you if you  make this... make sure you thoroughly mix the dry ingredients before you start on the next step.  I didn't mix them and ended up with big clumps of coconut and/or almonds that I couldn't get mixed in very well.

Next you measure out a ridiculous amount of sugar (two kinds) and butter.

Once it melts you can kick up the temperature to bring it to a boil.

Once it comes to a boil it needs to boil for four minutes before you dump the whole mix over the dry ingredients.  Mix well and then spread out on two cookie sheets.

Easy, quick and yummy!!  It will work great as a gift for my visiting teaching sisters.

Bake 52 Week 49 Large Danish Braid

I think this was the most complex recipe I've made with this group.  Before I joined they made some pretty intense pastries (which I still want to try) but this is the most complex pastry I've made.  The dough is pretty typical, warm milk, egg, flour, sugar, yeast and salt, mixed/kneaded in a stand mixer.

I had to add the full amount of the flour to get it to come into a ball.

Even then it was really sticky.  I transferred it to another bowl and put it in the frig for 1 hour.  The next step was to make a butter square.  I used a rolling pin to mash three half cubes of butter and one tablespoon of flour.  I was trying to be quite since I was doing this at 5:30 in the morning and my husband was still asleep. 

It took some working and pushing it around under the parchment paper but I think I ended up with a pretty good square.

That went into the frig as well.  An hour later it was time to roll out the dough.  I had a hard time getting it into a square.  I ended up working with it too long, the dough got warm and too sticky.  So I gathered it all up, stuck it back in the frig, waited 20 minutes and tried again. 

On my second try I was happy enough with the square.

Not perfect but... I went ahead with the next step anyway.  I folded up the dough corners to cover the butter.  Then I started mashing it as well until I could start rolling it out into a square again. 

You can see how the dough got really thin in some places so you can see the butter.  I folded it in thirds, and then in thirds again to a get a little square.  That's the same way I fold my husband's handkerchiefs.  :-)  Back into the frig it went for two hours.

After two hours I rolled the little square out into a big square again and then folded it up in thirds (twice) again.  Then after wrapping it up in plastic wrap (again) it went in the frig.

The rest of the recipe I did after church.  The cookbook had four options for the filling:  Apricot, prune, cheese, and cheese & cherry.  Yeah... I don't think so.  I made chocolate ganache for my filling. 

I melted 9 oz of semi sweet chocolate with a cup of heavy cream over a double boiler.  I only used about half of it.  I let it cool while I rolled out my dough.  Then I spread some yummy chocolate down the middle.

I didn't get it very centered, did I?  The next step was to cut the strips.  I used Jonathan's ruler and a pizza cutter. 

Then I folded the strips over, the middle, alternating each side. 

Not exactly symetrical... or as pretty as the one in the book but it was my first try.  It supposed let it sit for 30 minute to rise.  I let it sit for almost 45 minutes and it didn't look any different so I just stuck it in the oven.

After 13 minutes I rotated the pan.  It was looking pretty brown already so I set the timer for 11 minutes the second time.  I should have set it for like 5! 

Look at how dark it is!!  I already had the glaze made so I spread it over the whole thing while it was hot. 

In the book the glaze looks almost clear but look at how white mine is...  I'm supposed to let it sit for an hour and then drizzle icing over it...  But it was almost bedtime so I skipped that step.

The next day I did have a piece.

It was really good!  You can see how flaky the pastry was with all those layers of butter.  But I was disappointed that I had over cooked it.  The piece I had was from the end that wasn't burnt.  I threw the burnt part away.  This method is something I will be trying again.  The whole dessert was pretty fancy so maybe I'll make it for something where I have some time and I want to impress someone! 

For the recipe go to Jen's blog.