Milk & Cookies

This recipe comes to us from Heide (Jason’s mom) who got it from Wilma, a family friend. I’ve never made fudge before so of course I did a quick literature search first and found that a very similar recipe is also attributed to Paula Deen here. (And of course we all trust Paula Deen after we’ve seen what she can do with macaroni and cheese wrapped in bacon, breaded, and fried… well, use your own judgement here.)

I love getting rid of leftovers so I was very happy to include the marshmallows which we had left over from the Icebox Smores rather than leaving them in the pantry to turn into one giant stale marshmallow. Of course, later I remembered that I don’t love the flavor of marshmallows that much. I think some people love the flavor, some people don’t, and some people don’t notice it. For me, I like marshmallows in small doses or cooked over a fire, but I’ve never liked them mixed into things like my ice cream or granola bars. Some people (like my husband) LOVE marshmallows in things. He would probably put them in his macaroni and cheese if he weren’t already in a very committed relationship with his current secret mac ‘n cheese recipe. Well, even with my non-favorite marshmallow flavor, I think these turned out very good.

The recipe and instructions are very easy!

• 2/3 cup evaporated milk (or 5 oz. can)
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 2/3 cups sugar
• 1/2 teasp salt
• 2 cups mini marshmallows
• 12 oz semi sweet chocolate chips
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup walnuts optional – I didn’t include this

Directions:

Mix and heat on the stove: sugar, salt, evaporated milk, and butter. Bring to a gentle boil and boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add chocolate chips and stir until melted. Finally, add the vanilla and marshmallows and stir some more until you have a consistent texture.

I had a hard time stirring in the marshmallows because it looked so beautiful and swirly while they were only halfway mixed! Maybe next time I’ll leave them swirly but for my first attempt I wanted to follow the recipe.

Gourmet Smores? ... yes.

Super easy, no bake cookies! And see how fancy they look? These are some time consuming cookies to make, but honestly, most of that time is your refrigerator doing the work. It’s really only a little time up front and then some more time on the back end (if you plan on wrapping them up). Overall these are some of the easiest cookies I have made, and they’re already on my top 5 favorite list.

cookie credit: Joy the Baker (yet again)

Without further adu:

INGREDIENTS (makes 18-24 cookies)

• 1 box of graham crackers (14 oz)
• 3 handfuls of mini marshmallows
• 3 sticks and 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup light corn syrup
• pinch of salt

DIRECTIONS

Get out a large bowl and crumble the graham crackers into it. Break them into medium sized peices (about 1/8 of a cracker). Then toss in 2 handfuls of marshmallows. Set this bowl aside for now.

In a medium sauce pan, combine the butter, cocoa powder, corn syrup, and a pinch of salt. Warm it on the stove until all of the ingredients are melted and mixed smooth. Now turn off the heat and let it cool for a few minutes.

While waiting, prepare a 9 x 13 pan with a parchment paper to line it. When the time is up, pour the chocolate into the bowl with the crackers and marshmallows. Stir this mixture up until all the graham crackers are coated in chocolate. Then pour it all into the pan. Spread the dough around and press it down with your fingers using a second piece of parchment paper. Once its well spread out, sprinkle another handful of marshmallows on the top and press them in.

Now you should have a flat tray full of cookie mash. Set it aside for 30 minutes before placing the tray in the fridge for at least a few hours (preferably over night). Once cooled, cut the cookies into bars and serve them up.

Keep any uneaten cookies individually wrapped in the fridge.

Moonie, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs ... ok, just Moonie

Good things are a-brewin’. First of all, Switzerland was awesome! A giant thanks to Jan and Kim. I am still living on a little bit of a high from that trip, so I am taking all of life’s little annoyances in stride. I am also getting very close to making a large shift in my career path. Just knowing what is on the horizon is giving me daily energy and a better outlook on life. Last, and certainly not least… look at those cookies! I think these are the most amazing cookies I have made to date. I absolutely do not want to wait to eat one! The marshmallow filling is perfect. These cookies are a pretty large time commitment since they are completely from scratch, but man, is it worth it. Seriously…. these cookies will make you a star.

Big thanks to Nan Slaughter @ Pots and Pins for this recipe.

INGREDIENTS (makes 12-15 cookies)

Cookies:

• 1 cup sugar
• 5 tbls butter, softened
• 1 tspn vanilla
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 5 tbls unsweetened cocoa
• 1 tspn salt
• 1 tspn baking soda
• 1 tspn baking powder
• 1 cup buttermilk

Filling:

• 1 envelope unflavored gelatin
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup light-colored corn syrup
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup cold water

DIRECTIONS

Preheat your oven to 375ºF.

First thing to make will be the cookies. In a large bowl, combine the butter and sugar. Beat it together until blended. Add in the eggs and vanilla and beat it together until it is fluffy. In a separate bowl combine the flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Whisk it together until its all nice and mixed.

Now go back to your first bowl with the wet ingredients and start adding the dry ingredients and buttermilk a little bit at a time. Do this while mixing the batter, and alternating buttermilk and dry ingredients as you go. Scrape down the bowl a few times and make sure that the batter is well mixed.

On a parchment lined cookie tray, start spooning heaping tablespoon sized cookie batter. Leave a couple of inches between the cookies so that they don’t touch while cooking. Bake each tray for 9-10 minutes until fully cooked (use a toothpick to test). Let the cookies cool for a few minutes and then move them to a cooling rack. Keep baking until all the batter is used up. (should be about 30 cookies)

The filling is the fun part of these cookie sandwiches. First put the 1/2 cup of water in medium to large mixing bowl. Sprinkle the gelatin powder into the bowl and set it aside.

In a small saucepan put the other 1/4 cup of water, sugar, corn syrup, salt, and vanilla. Heat it on the stove until it reaches 244ºF. Apparently some people have a thermometer in their kitchen, so use that if you got it. I just waited for it to just start to simmer and then called it a success (my filling turned out great). Pour the hot liquid into the gelatin bowl and start mixing. Start by mixing on low for a little bit and then turn up the speed to max. The mixture will start to froth a bit and eventually will work itself into a thick foam. It supposedly takes anywhere from 6-10 minutes for the filling to get thick enough to use, but for me it took a little bit longer.


I think it has to do with the temperature… it needs to cool adequately before it will start to set. Anyways, you’ll get there. Now start spooning giant blobs of fluff onto the bottom of your cookies, using a second cookie on top to make a heavenly sandwich. Let the cookies set for an hour (or less if you are impatient).

Now pour a glass of milk and eat up!

My mom never smiles in pictures, except when flødebollers are involved.

My mom looooooves flødebollers. Her family lived in Denmark for 2 years when she was a kid, and apparently the Danes are crazy about flødebollers. Did you know that the average Dane eats 50 per year (according to Wikipedia)? Anyways, a couple years back my uncle Steve made homemade flødebollers from this recipe, making my mom crazy with sugary delight and setting high expectations for baked good at family gatherings for the next few decades.

So of course I wanted to try making them myself! Although, once I saw the recipe I started thinking maybe it would just be easier to fly to Denmark and buy flødebollers than to actually make them… Here’s a picture of my mom and my aunt doing just that.

Eat me.

The flødebollers consist of a cookie base with a mountain of meringue/marshmallow on top, covered in chocolate. Here’s the recipe. It makes 25 flødebollers.

For the base:

• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 3 1/2 ounces butter
• 5 tablespoons sugar

Combine ingredients and roll out dough. Cut 2 1/2 ” circles from the dough and bake on parchment paper for 10 minutes at 400 degrees. I had a hard time getting them to roll out without sticking to everything… oh well.

My vintage avocado green mixer worked fabulously.

For the filling:

• 6 egg whites
• 1/2 – 3/4 cup sugar

Whip egg whites until stiff peaks form. I had never actually done this before but it turns out that these days anyone with an internet connection can be a good baker. I found very detailed instructions on how to most optimally whip egg whites here. I kept waiting for stiff peaks to form, but I never saw them. I was wondering what would cause stiff peaks to form randomly at the surface, seemingly defying the laws of physics… well it turns out you are supposed to take the beaters out of the egg whites and see if the egg whites “hanging” from the bottom of the beaters form stiff peaks even once they’re turned sideways. OOOOOOH, that makes so much more sense. Here are my beautiful egg whites in my vintage avocado green mixer (is there any other type of avocado green mixer?). They don’t actually look like stiff peaks exactly, but it seemed to work out well in the end.

Naked flødebollers

Chocolate coating:

• 12 oz. chocolate chips

Pipe the filling onto the bases, and bake for 5 minutes at 400 degrees. Meanwhile, start the chocolate melting on a double boiler. Once the chocolate is melted, remove it from the stove. Paint the baked flødebollers with a melted chocolate coating (dipping did not work very well for me). Here’s a helpful tip: even though it takes a little while to get the chocolate melted, once it’s melted it won’t solidify for a while, especially in a warm kitchen, so as soon as it’s melted you can take the chocolate off the heat. You’ll be getting melted chocolate all over your hands while you do this, so better to let it cool a little and not burn yourself.