the best cccs I've made all year
and some pumpkin mallows!
happy end of 2023, we made it =)
Every December I publish a new marshmallow recipe, and I almost let this one go by without - but no! Here’s a new one and more to keep you warm and cozy with your hot cuppa cocoa.
new on bbs
Pumpkin Marshmallows
I’m betting on you still having pumpkin puree and pumpkin spice leftover from holiday projects: these will need both! Also, no corn syrup we’re going with maple syrup here for more flavor.
more mallows
Dark Chocolate Marshmallows
Lots of dutch process cocoa in these supersoft and bouncy mallows. More dusted on top for an intense chocolate flavor.
Apple Cider Marshmallows
My favorite mallows! A base made from fresh apple cider, brown sugar and honey. Optional (but recommended): swirl in some caramelized white chocolate.
Raspberry Marshmallows
Don’t let the heart plate fool you, these are good all year: a double whammy of raspberry (frozen and freeze dried) packs a ton of flavor into each little soft square.
OMG BARS
Graham cracker crust, a salted chewy caramel and a marbled (dark chocolate) brown sugar vanilla marshmallow. You take a bite and you’ll say: OMG these are amazing.
reader review (this comment was actually a lot longer so I just pasted the last bit, but it was such a sweet and thoughtful review I wanted to share some of it):
“There was a lot of groaning and oohing in the room as the first bites were taken. Everyone agreed this is by far the best cinnamon rolls to date. My family is now my sister, her hubby, their two kids and my husband and two kids and any significant others dating the kids which include my daughter’s girlfriend and my niece’s boyfriend. Since my sister doesn’t cook, I’m the host. With this recipe, A new family tradition has been born.” - Danee
notes & reads
p.s. hidden in the chocolate marshmallow recipe is a recipe for a ‘black cocoa hot cocoa’ (you guessed what it uses) and within the page for brown sugar mallows is a recipe for caramelized white chocolate ‘hot cocoa’. Both are within the text, so look for the matching heading above the recipe box. Neither really beat a really good cup of classic hot cocoa but they are fun, interesting and delicious in their own right.
We’re going to ease into 2024 so I’ll miss you for the first week of january and then come back on the 12th. I have my jan recipes ready to publish (who am I?! well, still sam, I just happened to overdo it over the last weeks of december so I have a lot of carryover recipes!). That said, plans tend to change and who knows what can happen… esp if those lovely lemons start appearing in abundance ;p
I am on a break from cooking and baking this week (although my hands are itching to make pita for my girls and shortbread for the now-empty cookie jar…), but my 7yo came to me on thurs evening with a recipe she’d written in her journal for a dozen chocolate cupcakes with mini choc chips and m&ms. She asked to make it so we went over what she had written together: “2 cups choc chips, 5 cups lily flour (she means white lily ;-)), 2 eggs, 1 stick butter, 1 cup m&ms, 4 cups sugar, and melted milk chocolate” (no amount specified). Here’s what we talked about and how we reworked her recipe (this isn’t actually a recipe, I wanted to share our conversation as I thought parts of it might be educational):
First, we reduced the flour to 2 cups, as I said 5 would be the amount for bread not a dozen cupcakes. We also took the sugar down to just a cup. I talked about how sugar is actually a ‘wet’ ingredient because when it dissolves or is heated it becomes liquid.
I explained that chocolate bars have added sugar and fat so it kind of throws off a cake recipe and it’s best to add ‘chocolate’ in it’s purest form: we swapped out the melted milk chocolate for a half cup of dutch cocoa.
We talked about the little holes in a cake and how they come about, explaining that we needed a rising agent. Per cup of flour, I suggested 1 teaspoon baking powder, unless there was something quite acidic in the recipe (natural cocoa, lemon or orange juice, yogurt, etc) and in those cases I would use baking soda as the soda would neutralize the acid (otherwise we end up with a metalic taste).
I asked her to compare a cookie and a cupcake in her mind and think about how and why the textures were different. She said a cake is softer so it has more moisture, I said, exactly! - and that’s why we probably need another egg and a liquid: water, milk or buttermilk. She chose 1 cup of buttermilk.
We talked about two small things that must go into almost every bake: salt and vanilla. She wanted to use the salt grinder but I explained how the granules tend to be quite large from the grinder and don’t disperse as well, plus we can’t measure them. Per cup of flour, I suggested 1/4 tsp fine sea salt. For the vanilla, I said she could go up to a tablespoon but because the batter has cocoa in it you wouldn’t taste it as much, she said she’d add 1 teaspoon.
We agreed on a cup of chocolate chips. I tried to talk her out of adding the m&ms because, surrounded by a wet batter they would dissolve and in a chocolate cupcake you wouldn’t even be able to tell they were there. I did not succeed and she added a cup of mini m&ms =p
The mixing methods: she had written the eggs first but I explained that for butter based cakes we usually use the creaming method (butter & sugar beaten together until airy - leads to a fluffy cake) or the reverse creaming (butter, sugar and flour beaten until sandy - leads to a tight crumb). However, she insisted that the butter be melted so she could make the batter without a machine. We ended up using my brownie method: melted the butter, whisked in the sugar, heated the mix then added the cocoa (I explained that a benefit of this was adding cocoa to the hot butter would bloom it which would intensify it’s flavor - she liked that) and then the eggs would go in one by one and last the dry ingredients.
When we got out the white lily flour I noticed I had mistakenly bought ‘self-rising’ so I told her we needed to reduce the amount of added leavening since it already had baking powder added, we added just 1 tsp.
The verdict: these might be more muffin like than cupcake, denser with less air beaten into them. The leavening was off, they should have risen more (this I think is a problem with self-rising flour, we don’t always know how much leavening is added and therefore how to adjust accordingly), and much of the added chocolate & candy sank to the bottom. They are really tasty though - that chocolate flavor is wonderfully pronounced. She has a recipe written down for the frosting (which also includes melted butter and melted chocolate, hehe) so we are going to work on that and frost them today! =)
lily's chocolate cupcakes
and for members
Ground Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies - maybe stuffed with caramel, maybe just more chocolate
These might be one of my favorite chocolate chip cookies. There is something about having so much pecan in the chocolate chip cookie dough that makes them irresistible. They’re chewy with a bit of crisp at the edges and sooo incredibly flavorful.