Well Hello There!

Welcome to my humble blog and my first post! I have been attempting to write this post for about a week now, but in true Busty Bakist fashion I broke my phone containing all the yummy pictures I wanted to include.

But fear not! With a little bit of luck, my limited knowledge of technology, then a lot more luck, I managed to get the pictures on my computer.

So, let me preface this post with a warning. I kinda decided to go all out for my inaugural post. I made Mallomars!

I have made a lot of cookies in my day. But homemade Mallomars, OH MY GOD. These are dangerous. I brought about twenty to work… and I’m pretty sure my boss had  minimum of ten cookies by himself.

Not only did I make some of the most delicious cookies ever, I made homemade marshmallows for the first time. I will be honest, I was terrified to make the marshmallows. But,  by some miracle they turned out amazing!!!! The recipe may seem daunting… but I promise it is soooo worth it in the end. I promise if you follow it to the word, your marshmallows will come out delicious.

If you happen to be prone to blowing up kitchens or you really don’t have enough time to make the marshmallows, you can cheat. You can just throw a jumbo sized marshmallow on top of the cookie and call it a day. But just know, I will be very disappointed in you .

I could blab on and on about my week and how I felt while making the Marshmallow Mounds (my personal name for Mallomars), but I know you just want to get to the good stuff.

So here is my first recipe!!

P.S. I’m not sure about you, but there is nothing I hate more than having to take my butter/flour/sugar covered hands to scroll back up from the directions to the ingredients to see the quantity. So, I’ve decided to make your life easier! Whenever you see an ingredient in the directions the word will be colored red, and if you hover your mouse over the ingredient, a nice little pop up square will tell you how much is needed.

Marshmallow Mounds

Cookies

Ingredients
3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter (cold)
3 eggs, whisked together

Tools
Mixer with paddle attachment (if you don’t have it isn’t a huge deal)
1 Large Mixing Bowl
Saran Wrap
Parchment Paper
Cookie Pan
A handfull of flour
Rolling Pin
Circle shaped cookie cutter (if you dont have a cookie cutter on hand you can always use the top of a can of PAM, it is the perfect size)

Directions

1.  Toss all the dry ingredients in the bowl. Using the paddle attachment (or whisk if you are paddleless) mix all the dry ingredients together.

2. Next, we need to add the butter. Make sure your mixer is on the lowest setting or butter and flour are going to go flying everywhere.

3. Mix until it starts to looks like crumbly sand.

4. Then add the eggs and mix until combined. The dough is going to look very crumbly, but don’t worry.

5. Using your hand push and squeeze together all the crumby dough until it starts to form into a big ball.

6. Take the big lump of dough and wrap it in saran wrap and throw it in the fridge (its optimal to let the dough chill for about an hour and a max of three days)

7. Once you have let the dough chill preheat the oven to 375°F

8. Now you will need to roll our your lump of dough. Make sure you sprinkle flour on your rolling surface and rolling pin (the dough is quite sticky). You want to roll out the dough to about a 1/4 of an inch thick (or whatever looks right to you).

9. Now whip out that cookie cutter (or top of a PAM can) and cut out as many cookies as you can.

10. Get out a cookie pan and cover it with parchment paper and place the circle cut outs on the pan (the cookies don’t rise or expand a lot). Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the cookies gain a golden brown edge.

 

Homemade Marshmallows!

Ingredients
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 tablespoons powdered gelatin
4 tablespoons cold water
4 egg whites , room temperature
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Tools
1 Saucepan
1 Medium mixing bowl
1 Small mixing bowl
Mixer with whisk attachment (or whisk)
Candy Thermometer

Directions

1. Add the water, light corn syrup, and sugar into the saucepan.

2. Now this is the tricky part… we need the ingredients in the saucepan to reach “soft ball stage,” which is 235°F on your candy thermometer. If you don’t have a candy thermometer (which I don’t) there is a handy dandy little trick. Sugar syrup dropped into cold water will form a soft, flexible ball. Once the sugar syrup reaches “soft ball stage” remove the saucepan off the heat.

3. In your small mixing bowl add cold water and sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water. Let the gelatin dissolve in the cold water.

4. Mix the gelatin and sugar syrup together

5. Take the egg whites and beat them until soft white peaks form (this will take a while, a minimum of 5 minutes)

6. Once the egg whites have been beaten pour the sugar syrup and vanilla.

7. Beat until stiff and it starts to look like marshmallows.

8. Once you have the marshmallows you can grab a spoon and place a dollop of marshmallow on every cookie. Let the cookies with their delicious  marshmallow toppings sit for at least 1/2 an hour.

Chocolate Glaze

Ingredients
24 oz of Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Tools
Double Boiler (A saucepan and a mixing bowl)
Cookie Pan
Parchment Paper

Directions

1. Melt the chocolate in the double boiler. Or place mixing bowl over simmering water and melt.

2. Now set up a pan covered with parchment paper.

3. Gently drop the marshmallow covered cookies in the melted chocolate. Cover the cookie completely with chocolate. Take the cookies out with a fork and let any of the excess chocolate drip.

4. Place chocolate covered cookies on the prepared pan and let the cookies sit for 1-2 hours. Or toss them in the fridge over night (if you can wait that long)!