MARSHMALLOWS... YOU KNOW YOU LOVE 'EM!

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I know it’s Thanksgiving week, and I do love Thanksgiving but I’ve been listening to Christmas music for the past week… ok maybe off and on it’s more like two weeks. Needless to say, I’m feeling rather Christmasy. So, peppermint marshmallows instead of turkey, after all, come Friday, Christmas will be in full swing.

Peppermint Vanilla Marshmallows

3 packets of gelatin, unflavored plus ½ cup of water

1 cup light corn syrup

1 ½ cups sugar

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

½ cup water (this goes with the corn syrup, sugar and salt)

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon peppermint extract

Lots of confectioners sugar for dusting, this is sticky stuff!

Mix the gelatin and water together in the bowl of a stand mixer. You’ll need the whisk attachment later, so go ahead and pop that on there.

Combine the corn syrup, sugar, salt and water in a small but deep sauce pan over medium heat. Don’t stir, just keep an eye on it until the temperature reaches 240 degrees on a candy thermometer. As soon as it does, take it off the heat.

With the whisk attachment in place, and the mixer on a medium-low speed, slowly pour the hot sugar syrup into the bowl with the gelatin. Once all the syrup in, turn the speed to high and let it go until the mixture is really thick. Takes about 12 minutes or so. During the last 2 minutes, add the vanilla and peppermint extracts, letting them mix in, then add a little red food coloring. Just eyeball it until it’s the color you like. I went for pale pink.

Using a sifter, dust an 8 x 12 inch pan with confectioners sugar… lots of sugar, make it snow! Then carefully pour the marshmallow into the pan and, just as generously, dust the top with more confectioners sugar. Leave it to sit, uncovered, on the counter to dry out for 7 or 8 hours… basically all day or over night depending on when you make them.

Using a spatula to loosen the sides, carefully transfer the now set marshmallow block onto a cutting board. Keep dusting your knife with confectioners sugar as you cut the marshmallows into cubes or blocks. Toss all the marshmallows with more powdered sugar to keep them from sticking to everything and each other.

You’ll have a lot of marshmallows, of course the exact number will depend on the size you cut them, but never fear, they freeze really well in a zip lock freezer bag. You’ll have peppermint marshmallows on hand for hot chocolate all throughout the holiday season. What are you waiting for? Go make marshmallows, it’s fun, I promise.

DREAMY, DREAMY ICE CREAM. THANKS LEE BAILEY!

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Lee Bailey's Country Desserts is one of my very favorite dessert cookbooks of all time. It's not just that the recipes are great, which they are, it was the way he wrote, the stories and advice he shared in all his books. Friendly, approachable and real. So you're pie crust isn't picture perfect, eh, it happens, it's still going to be delicious. Besides, it seems to me that often times when something looks just so beautiful and perfect, the taste ends up being disappointing. Am I alone here? Maybe it's just me. 

I've had this book for years and have looked repeatedly at the enticing photos of scoops of ice cream, ices and sherbets in pretty bowls and glasses but for some insane reason I had never made any of them. Now I've made two and I will continue making these two over and over again because they're THAT good and THAT easy. I have big plans to make some of the other ice cream recipes as well. I'm sharing these two because, well, it's nice to share and also because the book is, like all of Lee Bailey's cookbooks (I think, sadly), out of print. You can track them down used online, or if you're lucky, in a used bookstore. I found his Soup Meals cookbook by chance like that. Now, without further ramblings ...

Chocolate Nougat Ice Cream. If you love chocolate, make this now, if you don't love chocolate, make it anyway, might change your mind. The ice cream base smells and tastes so good I could actually eat it like soup. It's true, but it's even better as ice cream, so do that.

I used Valrhona Chocolate, 85% cacao, because I had the perfect amount on hand. I will be experimenting with other percentages of cacao because that's the perfect excuse to keep making this, research, all in the name of research. Little Tip: I chilled the base overnight in the fridge for both these ice cream recipes. It's so much easier than waiting, just go to bed, in the morning it'll be ready to churn.

Churned and ready for the freezer. Goes in light in color but darkens as it goes from a soft serve consistency to scoopable ice cream. 

Espresso Ice Cream. This is so smooth and creamy, a real coffee lovers dream. Plus, the base is even faster to whip up than the chocolate.  

There you have it. Two perfect, easy ice cream recipes to get you through the rest of summer and beyond ... because ice cream should be made and eaten often. Words to live by.

Mocha Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Cookies

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I had a craving for something REALLY chocolatey, and really why wouldn't I, why wouldn't you? So then I got an idea and started poking around in the kitchen to see what I had on hand. Who wants to make a grocery store run when they want chocolate now, the answer to that is nobody. Lucky me, I like to keep fairly well stocked on the necessities of baking. The result are these, Mocha Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Cookies, they're crisp around the edges, soft and chewy in the center and very chocolatey with a  nice mocha kick, just the way you want it. Let's get to it.

Makes about 3 dozen

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa Powder (You could use regular cocoa powder but then the cookies won't be nearly as dark or as special.)

1 tablespoon instant espresso

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

½ cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 sticks of unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Combine flour, cocoa powder, instant espresso powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl and set aside. Cream butter and both sugars together. Once creamed, add the eggs, beating until well combined then add the vanilla, beat to combine. Add in the flour mixture a little at a time until fully incorporated, scraping the sides of the bowl to make sure everything is getting well mixed. Mix in the chocolate chips with a rubber spatula, or I suppose you could use your mixer for this too, I just always mix chocolate chips in by hand. For the best results, scoop up cookies (get yourself a nice ice cream/cookie dough scoop, you'll never be sorry you did), and freeze them on a baking sheet before baking. This also works great because you can toss the frozen cookie dough balls in a freezer zip bag and just pop them in your freezer, freshly baked cookies whenever there's a need—lets face it, there's always a need for cookies.

Bake in a pre-heated oven. If you have a convection oven bake them at 325° for 12 minutes. For a regular oven, 350° for about 10 or 11 minutes. You don't want to over bake these. They'll look puffed and a bit under done but take them out and let them cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before moving them to a cooling rack, they'll deflate, leaving nice crisp edges and chewy centers, and who could be upset by that?