Yummy and Easy

A little teaser....

Its been a week. Way to long, and I am sorry. To make up for it, there are four posts today.

Today was not the best day. It was stressful and sad and I knew baking would make me feel a little better. I order two cookbooks and they finally came in on Tuesday, so I had lots of option for my "therapy". After looking through my cookbook 101 Easy Peasy Cookie Recipes, I went with the one Jim so kindly picked out yesterday - Chocolate Marshmallow Melts.
I had dinner going in the crockpot (more on that to follow), which meant as soon as I was done working I could start the baking straight away. One of the benefits of working from home is that at 5:00, I am done and my only commute is the walk from the office to the kitchen! So I stopped working, and 45 minutes later....Tadaaa!

I really like this picture. And I really LOVE this cookie. I normally eat only one or two of my cookies, but today, I had three....yes three! The marshmallow stays nice and gooey and when you take a bite (or cut it like I did for the picture) some of the marshmallow oozes down. So so good! The recipes says it yields 36 - I got 32 cookies out of it. Which is plenty, but I say that because you should wait to cut your marshmallows until you know how many you will need.

The cookbook is called 101 Easy Peasy Cookie Recipe. It is broke down by bar cookie, drop cookie, no bake cookie, rolled cookie, and shape cookie. I like that most of the recipes use items you would have around, or could get easily. No strange ingredients. There are no pictures, which doesn't bother me, but I did miss the technical portion. There are recipes and that is it. I enjoy actually reading cookbooks - like a regular book and learing new strategies, techniques and tips. I guess Easy Peasy doesn't involve a lot of reading. I would still recommend the book, and have attached a link to it on Amazon. Plus I bought Alton Browns I'm Just Here for More Food. That will be a lot of cookbook reading and learning.

http://www.amazon.com/101-Easy-Peasy-Cookie-Recipes/dp/1434821749/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208483098&sr=1-1

Chocolate Marshmallow Melts

• 1/2 C butter, softened
• 1 C granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 C milk
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 C all purpose flour
• 1/3 C unsweetened cocoa
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 18 Large marshmallows ( I only needed 16 - you will need one marshmallow for every two cookies)

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. In large bowl, cream together sugar and butter
3. Beat in egg, mik, and vanilla extract to butter/sugar mixture
4. In seperate bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt
5. Gradually add to flour mixture to creamed mixture, beating after each addition
6. Once combined, drop by rounded teaspoonfuls (or use a cookie scoop) onto ungreased baking sheets. I don't grease my cookie sheets, but I do use parchment. The cookies slide right off, and if you take a paper towel and wipe it off while it is still on the cookie sheet and put it away in a cupboard you can reuse a few times Bake for eight minutes.
7. While cookies are baking, use kitchen scissors and cut marshmallows in half.
8. Remove cookies from oven, place marshmallow half, cut side down on cookie and place back in oven for another 3 minutes
9. Transfer to wire racks to cool

Enjoy!

We are having friends for dinner Saturday and I am making molten chocolate cakes - I'll post on Sunday.