Mallomars

Over the weekend, I decided to make some awesome mallomars for my friend Bethany’s birthday. I also organized a dinner at Momofuku Ssam Bar (I’ll post about that next week) but I thought it would be a nice surprise to bring some treats to dinner since it was her birthday (and her husband’s the next day). The cookies were a tad on the dry side, but the marshmallows and dark chocolate really make the cookie pretty darn awesome.

Mallomars (also known as Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies)
Recipe courtesy of Gale Gand

Cookie Ingredients:

3 cups (375grams/13.23oz) all purpose flour
1/2 cup (112.5grams/3.97oz) white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
12 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter
3 eggs, whisked together
Homemade marshmallows, recipe follows
Chocolate glaze, recipe follows

I was in the mood to be exact, so I pulled out my kitchen scale and weighed out the flour:

And the sugar:

And placed all of the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder) into my mixer:

I also whisked my 3 eggs together in a separate bowl and set it aside:

I whisked together all of my dry ingredients using my paddle attachment and then added my butter until the mixture was sandy:

And then added my eggs to the mixture and mixed until a dough formed:

I wrapped the dough with some saran wrap and put it in the fridge for an hour (you can store it up for 3 days):

After about 3 hours, I took the dough out and used cookie cutters to make flower and square-shaped cookies (on a lightly floured surface):

Those baked in the oven for about 10 minutes (in a preheated 375 degree oven) and let them cool while I made my marshmallows.

Marshmallow Ingredients:

1/4 cup water
1/4 cup light corn syrup
3/4 cup (168.76 grams/5.95oz) sugar
1 tablespoon powdered gelatin (1 package of Knox gelatin)
2 tablespoons cold water
2 egg whites , room temperature
1 vanilla bean

In a saucepan, combine the corn syrup, 1/4 cup water, and sugar and bring to a boil until “soft-ball” stage, or 235 degrees on a candy thermometer (okay, I don’t own a candy thermometer so I kind of guessed…about 3 minutes of boiling like this picture):

While the sugar, corn syrup, and water were boiling, I mixed the gelatin with the 2 tablespoons of cold water:

I combined the syrup and the gelatin and let it sit for a couple of seconds while I put together the egg whites:

I whipped the egg whites until soft peaks formed and then added the syrup and the vanilla bean seeds:

Since I don’t own pastry bags, I used ziploc bags instead (just as easy and super cheap!) I put the marshmallows in the ziploc bag, snipped off an edge, and started piping them on the cooled cookies:

I also spread some pumpkin butter and cranberry apple butter (both from Trader Joe’s) onto the cookies before piping on the marshmallow:

You’re supposed to let the marshmallows set for 2 hours, but after an hour, I got impatient and started dipping the cookies in chocolate.

Chocolate Dip Ingredients

12 ounces dark chocolate (one bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips)
2 ounces vegetable oil

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler (or a bowl over simmering water). Dip the cookies topped with marshmallows in the chocolate and pick it up with a fork after tapping it on the side of the bowl a couple of times to get rid of excess chocolate. Final result:

Mallomar with a thin layer of pumpkin butter:

They were a little time consuming to make, but really delicious and I brought extras into the office the next day – another big hit (and the pumpkin butter and cranberry apple butter really added a nice fall touch!)