Marshmallow Brownies - Take Two!

I've said it before - I'm a s'mores fanatic. That gooey, chocolaty, marshmallowy goodness gets me every time. When my husband wants to have a bonfire on an 80 degree night? As long as we have marshmallows, I'm there. It's the perfect combination if you ask me. So that's why I've found another Marshmallow Brownie recipe. I can't get enough!

Borrowed and adapted slightly from Eat, Love and Be Happy

Marshmallow Brownies

3/4 cup unsalted butter

9 oz. quality bittersweet chocolate (I used Ghiradelli)

½ cup sugar

3 eggs

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

1 cup flour

½ tsp. salt

Mini chocolate chips 

1 package of large marshmallows

• Preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Prepare a 9x13 pan with tin foil, parchment paper or PAM
• Melt the butter and chocolate on your microwave's defrost setting, stirring every minute until smooth
• Combine the sugar, eggs and vanilla in another bowl
• When butter and chocolate is slightly cooled, stir in the sugar, eggs and vanilla
• Stir in the flour and salt
• Pour the mixture into the prepared pan
• Cut the marshmallows in half and place on top of the brownie mix
• Bake for 20-30 minutes and sprinkle a handful of chocolate chips on top as soon as they are out of the oven. Then bring them immediately to church or work or daycare so you don't sit and eat them all at once. Or go ahead and eat them all. I won't judge.

Ooey, Gooey, Rich Marshmallow Brownies

Story is, hubby never asks for sweets. He doesn't..."like"...sweets. What is that? So tonight, when he asked for brownies, and I didn't have a mix on hand, I had to find a recipe fast. This rare occasion that he wants a sweet (and thereby, I get a sweet, guilt-free, instead of eating a scoop of ice cream alone in a corner like I'm on some sugar binge), well, it couldn't go unfulfilled.

I found this recipe on my Pinterest for Marshmallow Brownies (source). It's a quick and easy recipe that turned out ooey, gooey, super rich. Delicious. And hubby? He had two. 

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter
• 9 oz. bittersweet chocolate
• ½ cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tbsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ tsp. salt
• mini chocolate chips
• mini marshmallows

Preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Grease a 9x9 baking pan.
Combine the butter and chocolate and melt them in a bowl in the microwave at 50% power.
Stir in the sugar, eggs and vanilla until incorporated.
Stir in the flour and salt until just combined.
Pour batter in the pan and layer marshmallows on top.
Bake for 20-25 minutes. 

Banana Bread (aka Thank you, Facebook!)

I recently posed a question to my Facebook friends: How the heck do you get banana bread out of the pan without falling apart? I felt like I'd tried everything, but I still lost half of the bread to crumbs. What was I doing wrong?

I got lots of answers, the pan material, pan shape, recipe, lining of the pan or coating, etc. This week, I decided to try them all.

And guess what? It worked. Yes, the angels sang and the heavens shined upon me as this beautiful banana bread loaf slid out of the pan. Glory be.

To recap, I had been using:

•  an old Food Network Magazine recipe
• a glass pan with round corners
• butter
• waiting either really long, or really short to remove from the pan

 When I tried it this time, I used:

• Alton Brown's banana bread recipe (below)
• a metal, non-stick pan with straight sides and crisp corners
• PAM with flour
• wait exactly 10 minutes

It was just amazing, after so many wasted loafs and frustrating baking times, it worked! I'd made a beautiful bread, that didn't sink, that didn't crumble and that tasted fabulous. I was so pleased. I'll be using this recipe from here on out, for sure!

Banana Bread (Alton Brown for Food Network)

1 cup granulated sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
3 ripe bananas
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Coat a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan with PAM and flour.

Cream the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

In a small bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. Mix in the milk and cinnamon. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add the banana mixture to the creamed mixture and stir until combined. Add dry ingredients, mixing just until flour disappears.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Set aside to cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Remove bread from pan, invert onto rack and cool completely before slicing.

Smores Mini-Cups

These just turned out so cute! I love all things chocolate-graham cracker-marshmallow. The ooey gooey fire-roasted sweetness is certainly the key to my heart. And mini-sized means I can eat more than one! These are great for parties, too, I brought them to work recently.

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 package of graham crackers (just one of the "sleeves" in a box)
1/3 cup powdered sugar (optional)
Milk chocolate chips
1 package of mini marshmallows

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Crush graham crackers. I either put them in a plastic zipper bag and run a rolling pin over them, or toss them in the magic bullet and let it do its...err...magic. Both work well to get the fine pieces that you need, one just requires more work.
Mix graham crackers with melted butter and powdered sugar. I leave this optional because I keep on scaling back the sugar, but don't really think it's necessary unless you really like the sweet flavor. Try it with your first batch, but know it works well without.
Press into cups of a mini muffin pan. No liners, no grease, just smoosh that in there. Be sure to leave the shape of the cup, this involves a lot of cute little mini muffin cup work.
Bake 4-5 minutes, just long enough to toughen those babies up, they might look like the butter in them is bubbling.
As soon as they are out of the oven, sprinkle your preferred combination of chips and marshmallows into each cup. I like to mix them up, you could layer chips, then marshmallows, then chips. I just like to make sure there's a little marshmallow and a little chip on top.
Put back in the oven on the top rack for another minute or so, just long enough to melt some chocolate and brown the top of the marshmallows.
These are fabulous warm, but good anytime! Enjoy! 

Marshmallow bark

1 bag high quality bittersweet choc, milk choc, white choc, etc

1 bag of marshmallows

2 Tbsp butter

Any fun extras like mini M&Ms, sprinkles, nuts, caramel drizzle, sea salt, etc

Melt chocolate and butter. This can be done either in a double broiler or microwave at 50% power (defrost). I prefer the microwave version, just be sure to use in a microwave safe bowl, as the chocolate gets pretty hot. Be sure to stir often. These pictures were taken every minute or so. 

Special note: be sure not a drop of water gets in your mixture. I learned this lesson the hard way when I was making chocolate peacocks for Hannah's wedding in 2010. Water and the heated chocolate reacts somehow and clumplifies (technical term) the chocolate. It looks and tastes awful. So your bowl, and mixing utensils, everything should be DRY. In my case, the handle of the spoon I was using had water in it, and dropped into the mixture and messed it all up. That chocolate went to the garbage, rather than into the peacock mold...

Add marshmallows and mix gently to coat

Here's where you can go classy or not. The original directions call to spread in a 9x9 pan and refrigerate. When it hardens, you cut into cute little squares and they look fab. Or you can do this: 

I was inspired to skip the cutting step and make little marshmallow bark cookies of sort. But let's not split hairs: they look like deer poop. I swear they taste fabulous, despite their scat-like appearance. 

BUT! I got creative and thought sprinkles would make them festive and less waste-ful (get it?). 

Eh. Not so much. Looks like Rudolph poop. This might be fun for kids or something. Next time, I'll stick to the pan! 

Whipped Cream

Whenever I need whipped cream, I make it myself. I figure, I'm already having something decadent, I may as well go full-throttle. Homemade whipped cream is extremely simple and well worth your time and prepared brands don't even compare.

Ingredients:

• Heavy whipping cream
• confectioners sugar to taste
• vanilla to taste

An entire pint of whipping cream makes a whole heaping lot of whipped cream. If you plan to use the whipped cream for something like a 13 x 9 cake, I'd say you need about 2/3 the carton.

Take your bowl and beater and place it in your freezer for 15 minutes. I believe this is helps the cream whip better.

Beat whipping cream on med-high for about 5 minutes or until stiff peaks form. Use a spatula to add vanilla and sugar. You can make this as sweet as you like. For this amount, I add about two heaping tablespoons of confectioners sugar and a couple teaspoons of vanilla.

If find this is best to use the whipped cream within the next 24 hours. I wouldn't make this far ahead of when I plan to use it.