Baking Marathon Snowday 2
“On the second day of the snowday, my true love gave to me…” Well if the singers of this song were a chorus of my parents and Lin Loo, then this line would be finished by “2 chocolate cookies and a platter of chocolate chip ones!”
Yes, chocolate chip cookies weren’t enough. I wanted to bake more, especially since my mom volunteered to take me on a walk to the grocery store. (I guess she liked my chocolate chip cookies that much, or she just go sick of my incessant complaints of boredom.)
Chocolate Cookie Dough Batter, also delicious to eat before baking!
I really wanted to make whoopie pies, since I’ve seen a lot of creative peppermint whoopie recipes circulating the blogosphere. I was going to try the pepperminty recipes, but realized that I didn’t have candy canes. Luckily, I found a bag of unopened marshmallows in my baking cabinet. Perfect, I could make marshmallow fluff!
Caramelized Marshmallow Fluff
Except… my marshmallow fluff turned out pretty badly. I wasn’t sure how to make it, so I just cooked marshmallow in butter until it melted. Worried that the mixture might stick to the pan and burn, I poured in a bit of milk.
The result was… caramel? Even before the marshmallows melted, a light brown sugary goop started to form. It looked dangerous, but after a taste test, I realized this tasted familarly delicious. Caramel of course, is made from boiling sugar in cream and water at high temperature, stirring to prevent burn. Since my marshmallows were a bit stale, the sugar must have collected on the exterior, which became caramelized when I cooked them.
Whoopie Pie Failure
After attempting to sandwich the caramel marshmallow fluff between two of my chocolate cookies, I found the cookies to be too thick and the fluff to be too caramelly. So I just let them be. The cookies remained unadulterated chocolate cookies and the fluff I kept to eat (since it started resembling mochi).
My parents like these chocolate cookies better than last time’s chocolate chip ones. They said it reminded them of chocolate-flavored man tou— soft, poofy, and not too sweet!
Here’s the recipe (from Good Housekeeping Cookbook):
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup milk
- 6 tablespoons butter (melted)
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Marshmallow Creme (recipe included below if you’re feeling up to the challenge I failed!
1. Mix the butter well; add in all the wet ingredients.
2. Add in the dry ingredients one at a time, sifting the flour and cocoa powder if you wish.
3. Grease cookie sheets with butter or oil.
4. Preheat oven to 350 F.
5. Use tablespoon to drop little mounds of dough on the cookie sheet.
6. Bake for about 10-11 minutes, testing with a chopstick.
Marshmallow Creme Recipe
- 6 tablespoons butter, softened
- 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
- 1 jar marshmallow creme (1.5 cups)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Apparently, all you have to do is blend this ingredients, preferably with a mixer. But if you’re going to make it from just marshmallows, experience tells me you might just end up with caramel!
:O
LikeLike