Tag: marshmallows

Onto the challenge. Hosted by Nicole, the call was to make one, or both, of the cookies on offer – Milanos and/or Mallows (Chocolate covered cookies). I had good intentions of trying both, but grabbed the mallows first. WOW…marshmallows have been on my list of things-to-do for ever. Courage to try them always missing, which is why I’m a HAPPY DB today, with a satisfied sweet tooth. Thank you Nicole!! Some things just get moved up in queue from want to do, to have to do! Making Mallows has been the best cookie experience I’ve had, & by far the most involved & exciting. DELICIOUS & IMPRESSIVE for homed-baked cookies, we couldn’t get over them. Got huge thumbs up from the whole family, & for once, even from myself.

A huge issue however was the heat & humidity! Summer months in North India are by far the worst in the year, where power outages rule our life, butter flows merrily at room temperature, & chocolate almost doesn’t need a double boiler to melt!! Get the point? OK, so that’s what I was up against this month, with temperatures running into the 40C’s & humidity at an all time high of almost 87-90%. Had to turn to fabulous pastry chef & DB Helene @Tartlette on good ole Twitter to seek advice on the chocolate coating. A few tweets later, with my doubts cleared and a fan in action, I got set, & enjoyed making these beauties. Mallows are a fabulous cookie to make, & only once they come together under the chocolate coating, do you realise the magic you’ve created. The cookie base is crisp & light as air (I had my doubts about the base cookie, & was proved a 100% wrong). The marshmallows were FUN to make, almost uncertain again that I would manage, so I worked with them a little gingerly. I didn’t pipe on big glops of marshmallow on the cookie because I thought they would slide right off & spread uncontrollably due to the heat, but surprise, surprise! They held their ground, & beautifully. The chocolate coating was fun & very satisfying. I thought everything would fall apart once in the melted chocolate, but this part was a breeze! The other challenge of course was getting the chocolate to set, which it did only in the fridge, & then trying to get some good ‘unbloomed‘ shots. Not altogether possible, because the coating melted & gathered condensation as soon as it was out of the fridge. The mallows TASTED FABULOUS though, & am so glad I made these. Could never imagine I would something as delightful as these from scratch one day! YUM! The other problem was that I got way too many cookies out of the batch, almost 1-2 dozens still sitting in the box. The marshmallow & melted chocolate weren’t sufficient for the whole batch of cookies, which were almost 8 dozen! Maybe I rolled them too thin, but it was 1/8″ alright. I got a few mallows sans the chocolate coating, so did them up with different toppings. Drizzled scraped melted chocolate coating over a few, with chocolate shavings. Sprinkled some citrus sugar over others etc.The citrus sugar idea came from Audax Artifex’s post on the forum at DB. Was a pleasure to make it. I make lime juice for the kids everyday when they return from school. So as a routine now, I microplane the zest off & run the zest the microwave for 2-3 minutes till dry. Rub the zest into the sugar well with your fingertips, & voila, you have some good citrus sugar. Thank you Audax…I love it! The marshmallows and chocolate coating ran out pretty soon. So something had to be done with the base cookies that got left over. Crumbs leftover from a Chocolate Bundt Cake that I make often, mixed in with some thick chocolate ganache, gave birth to some Chocolate Sandwich Leftover Cookies! What’s not to love about left-overs? I ♥ them!!

Another good challenge completed & enjoyed. Thank you also to Lis & Ivonne, our founders, for this daringly fun kitchen. Life being a DB is certainly exciting. Do check out what the other Daring Bakers have been mallowing around with HERE!