Tuesdays With Dorie - Marshmallows Into Cookies

Judy, of Judy’s Gross Eats, chose a really fun recipe for this week’s Tuesdays With Dorie: Marshmallows. At least I thought it would be fun…

I’ve made marshmallows before and they were terrific. My usual recipe doesn’t call for egg whites though and that’s where things went a bit haywire for me. My first attempt turned into marshmallow soup with bits of cooked egg white because I was distracted and my syrup’s temperature went too high. My bad.

My second attempt went really well, the marshmallows were puffy and beautiful. I made half the batch into cappuccino marshmallows and kept the rest vanilla just so I could compare with another batch I’d made with my usual recipe. Once they’d set and cooled and had been cut and rolled in icing sugar, we tasted a few, thought they were delicious, so I put the rest away and came back a few hours later to take some pictures. I was greeted by a mess of soggy, unappetizing and un-photogenic marshmallows. The vanilla ones weren’t too bad but the cappuccino ones were a real mess, like the egg had separated from the rest of the ingredients. Was it the icing sugar? Who knows? I couldn’t salvage the cappuccino marshmallows. I even tried to make Rice Krispies Treats with them. Let’s just say, it wasn’t a success.

What did I do with the vanilla marshmallows? I made a batch of my favorite chocolate chip cookies, replaced some of the flour with unsweetened cocoa powder for half the batch, used pecans instead of walnuts and made Rocky Road Cookies, Two Ways. Those were a success, oh, yes. They still need to be tweaked though as some of the cookies ended up looking like lace cookies because of the marshmallows melting but once I got the idea to put the dough in the refrigerator for a while, they came out a lot better looking. They all tasted incredible though, even the weird looking ones. So, am I going to make marshmallows again? Yes, but not with Dorie’s recipe. My all gelatin recipe, which I found over at What Geeks Eat, is just so much simpler and they keep for at least a week at room temperature. Those I took pictures of! I hope the other Tuesdays With Dorie members had better luck with their marshmallows than I did! For Dorie's recipe, I'll let you visit the other members' blogs for the ones who were actually successful in their marshmallow making journey!

Marshmallows Recipe
What Geeks Eat

3 envelopes of Knox gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cups corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Powdered sugar for dredging

In the bowl of an electric mixer (preferably a stand mixer), sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water. Soak for 10 minutes. Combine sugar, corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil hard for 1 minute. Pour boiling syrup into gelatin and mix at high speed. Add the salt and beat for 12 minutes. Add vanilla and incorporate into mixture. Brush your

spatula with oil and scrape the mixture onto a sheet pan lined with foil brushed with oil and spread evenly. Cover with another piece of foil brushed with oil.

Let mixture sit for a few hours. Remove from pan, dredge the marshmallow slab with confectioners’ sugar and cut into equal pieces with a chef’s knife. Dredge each piece of marshmallow in powdered sugar or dip in chocolate.

Rocky Road Cookies

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 ¼ tsp baking soda
1 ½ tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
3 large eggs
3 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp instant espresso powder
1 ½ cups chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup marshmallows (leave them in big chunks, that will prevent them from melting too much)

Preheat oven to 375F.

In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking soda and salt; set aside. In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, or in a stand mixer, beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in vanilla and espresso powder. With a wooden spoon, mix in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips and walnuts.

On a parchment paper lined baking sheet, drop tablespoonfuls of the dough about 1 inch apart. Bake for 10 minutes. Cool 1 to 2 minutes on baking sheet then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Note: To make the Chocolate Rocky Road Cookies, replace 1 cup of flour with 1 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder.