I always read through a recipe completely before I start making it, but I had a bit of a fail in this regard when I made Sarah Kieffer's pan-banging "S'mores Cookies" from 100 Cookies. I went through the ingredient list to make sure that I had everything I needed. But somehow I only registered the word "Marshmallows" and skipped the part where it referred to a separate recipe for homemade marshmallows in the cookbook. Instead, in my mental checklist I thought: I've got a bag of Jet-Puffed mini-marshmallows, so I'm all set!
Kieffer's s'mores cookies use the same base recipe as her pan-banging chocolate chip cookies. The only differences are that the s'mores cookies: have half as much vanilla extract; use a third less chocolate; and call for milk or semisweet chocolate instead of semisweet or bittersweet. Once you make the cookie dough and portion it out (I used a #16 scoop and got 12 cookies from a batch), you roll each cookie in a graham cracker mixture (graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and melted butter) before baking. Then at the end of the baking time, you top each cookie with some marshmallows, put the cookies back in the oven briefly until the marshmallows start to melt, and use a torch or the broiler to toast the marshmallows.
The cookbook photo shows cookies topped with a single continuous large blob of marshamallow that probably takes up about a third of the total surface area of the cookie. If you made your own marshmallows, you could of course cut them into big squares that would be appropriate for the scale of these pan-banging cookies. My mini-marshmallows looked woefully inadequate. Jumbo store-bought marshmallows would have been a real step up, but as I looked at my skimpy marshmallows on the finished cookies, I really wished that I had taken the time to make my own marshmallows.
Even though the s'mores cookies are very similar to the regular pan-banging chocolate chip cookies, they tasted quite different. Not such much because of the graham crackers -- which were pretty sparse in the final product -- but because I used Cacao Barry Lactée Supérieure 38% milk chocolate pistoles in these cookies. The milk chocolate gave the cookies a very different overall flavor that was more reminiscent of the flavor you would get in a classic s'more, compared to the 64% extra-bitter Guayaquil pistoles I used in the chocolate chip cookies. I can imagine that having a generous square of homemade toasted marshmallow on top of the cookies would make a huge difference in making these even more s'more-like.
Even with my incredibly weak marshmallow game, these cookies were delicious. As with the other pan-banging cookies I've made, the centers stayed wonderfully chewy even though the cookies were quite thin. But the next time I make them, I'm ditching the store-bought marshmallows!
Recipe: "S'mores Cookies" from 100 Cookies by Sarah Kieffer.
Previous Post: "Finally Joining the Pan-Banging Bandwagon: Pan-Banging Chocolate Chip Cookies," November 5, 2020.
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