Rocky Road Cookies

All right, we're on a cookie spree. And this time, I'm turning ice cream into cookies.

I'm kinda liking this as a theme, and I think maybe next time I'll try a mint chocolate chip. I also thing that the next time I'm at Recipe Guy's place, I need to try making ice cream again. 

Rocky Road Cookies

What you need:

• 1 1/2 cups sliced almonds
  
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
  
• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup mini marshmallows 

What you gotta do:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spread the mini-marshmallows on a baking sheet and put them in the freezer.

They only take about 10 minutes to freeze. You can do this ahead of time and store the frozen marshmallows in a container in the freezer until you need them... which makes me wonder what else I can do with frozen mini marshmallows.

Spread the sliced almonds on a baking sheet and put them in the oven for about 5 minutes.They should be getting just golden and toasty.

You can do this with whole almonds and chop them afterward if you want chunkier bits of nuts.

Put the butter, bittersweet chocolate, and unsweetened chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and nuke for 45 seconds on half power.

Stir and repeat until you've got a bowl of smooth, melty buttery chocolate.

In a big bowl, beat the sugar and eggs until they're pale and frothy.

Add the vanilla and melted chocolate mixture and beat until shiney.

 

Mix the flour and baking powder together in a small blow. If you used unsalted butter (I didn't) add a scant 1/4 tsp of salt too.

Stir the flour into the shiney chocolate mixture.

Fold in the toasted almonds, frozen marshmallows, and chocolate chips.

This is going to be a pretty soft cookie dough. It's really more of a brownie batter, but I don't recommend trying to bake it in a pan as brownies. The marshmallows can only handle being inthe oven for a little while. If you want to make this into brownies, leave the marshmallows out, and put them on top for the last 5-7 minutes of baking.

You could actually do that with the cookies too if you felt like bothering.

Since this is soft, and we don't want the marshmallows to thaw too quickly, put the bowl in the fridge for 5-10 minutes. It will firm up so that you can scoop it nicely.

Or, you could just drop the dough by the spoonful onto a baking sheet, and put the baking sheet in the freezer for 5-10 minutes. I tried baking a set after just a few minutes in the fridge and the marshmallows couldn't take it. They just turned to goo and left holes in the cookies where they'd one been. The lacey sugary stuff that spewed out of them totally tasted like toasted marshmallows, but that's really not the intent here.

Even after time in the freezer, the marshmallows are going to nearly disintegrate. But they won't do it as fast or as completely.

You know, if you didn't put the marshmallows in the batter, you could chill it until you can handle it, then roll bits of batter around a marshmallow or two. That way, you'd be guaranteed to have no marshmallows on the edges. It's the edge ones that turn into goo and disappear.

I didn't do that this time, and I'm not sure I'd have the patience for it some other time, but you could always give it a shot...

Bake them for 10 minutes and give them a minute to cool on the parchment before tranferring them to a cooling rack.

They are soft and holy freaking chocolatey, and have these fun gooey spots inside them.

I would ask what else has fun gooey spots inside, but we already know the answer to that: "your mom".

So instead, I'm going to ask: "What else can I do with frozen mini marshmallows?"

pies are square

So, I wanted to try that shortbread crust again, but I didn't have any pears. I did manage to find my 1/3 c dry measure though. It was in the container of oatmeal mix. Nice to find, but I didn't need it, since I'm tripling the recipe for the crust this time.

I've been trying to come up with cookies that are like other desserts, along the lines of the epic creamsicle cookies, and the extremely labour intensive black forest cookies. A new acquaintance suggested "raspberry tarts."

The pear tart had a bit of an issue with moisture, so I need to be careful with these. And since I want them to be portable, I'm not going to make them open faced.

I know this is going to pose a bit of a challenge because the shortbread dough is soft. So, I decided to chill it first for a bit. If all else fails, I'll cover the berries in a patchwork peicemeal fashion.

So, if you're ready, I have a counter devoid of dishes that needs to get dirty...

Raspberry Tart Cookies

What you need:

• 1 c butter
• 1 c sugar
• 2 c flour
• 1 c fresh raspberries

What you gotta do:

Make sure your butter is nice and soft.

Cream in the sugar until it's pale and fluffy.

Add the flour 1/2 c at a time mixing until just combined. I cut back the flour a bit this time, since it seemed a little on the dry side when I made the pear tart. **Which was a total mistake, so I've adjusted the amount in the ingredient list above. Use 2c flour. I only used 1 1/2 and it was definitely not enough**

This is going to be a very soft and slightly sticky dough. Since I knew I was going to need to handle it quite a bit in the rolling, I decided to chill it.

Separate the dough in half and wrap two floured discs in floured plastic wrap. You need the flour. It will stick if you don't have it. **you may not need as much flour on the wrap if you use the right amount. may not need to chill it either.**

Chill the dough for at least 10 minutes. Half an hour probably would have worked better, but I was impatient and it was getting late.

Now, I didn't follow the best method initially (welcome to my understatement), so, here's what I should have done.

Preheat the oven to 375 **the 400 that I used for the pear tart is too hot for these mini-pies**.

On a large piece of floured parchment, roll out one of the disks to about 1/4 inch thick.

** I did this on the counter, then realized I had to move it onto parchment. Dangerous, but I managed.** I was aiming for something somewhat rectangular, but it ended a little more rounded.

Put that piece of dough aside.

On another large piece of floured parchment, roll the other disc into a shape and size similar to the first.

One of these is going to be slightly larger than the other: that one is the top.

Flatten the raspberries by tearing them open and lay them on the bottom sheet of crust.

Try not to burst any of the arils as you do this; you want them dry. Too much juice here and the middle won't cook completely.

Once you've got the bottom covered in berries, figure out some way to cover them with the top crust. I lined mine up side by side and really quickly flipped the top onto the bottom. I'm pretty sure I'd never be able to to it again.

Good luck.

Patch the edges and broken peices gently. These will not be visible in the final product. Don't worry about how it looks right now.

With the point of a sharp knife, cut the giant covered tart into 1 inch squares. And I mean 1 inch. They are going to spread.

Gently transfer a dozen of the squares to the cookie sheet. Make sure it's covered in parchment (reuse the piece that the "top" was rolled on).

Bake these at...  400 seemd a little hot, or maybe I should pay more attention and watch the cookies instead of writing a blog post about them? 8 minutes at 375 seemed the best batch.

They're going to spread, but you want to get them out before they get too brown on the edges. And they are buttery.

A little too much so. Definitey need to increase the flour. Well, this is tagged as a "kitchen experiment," right?

They're tasty though, and really do have the flavour of a raspberry tart. Kinda look like them too.

Sorta.

Maybe?

Next time they might.

I hope.

Damn my kitchen is a mess.

I hope you're happy, Denisearoni. ;)