Revisiting a Favorite

One of my favorite Christmas Cookies is my Mom's Choco-Marshmallow cookies. They are a very simple cookie, a chocolate cookie is baked most of the way through before a marshmallow half is pressed into the top. The cookie finishes baking and after it cools, it gets a layer of creamy chocolate frosting. Of all the cookies, this is the one that screams Christmas to me most. And as it turns out, this was one of Mom's favorite cookies as well, so its only fitting that it become a part of my cookie collection every year.

Today I needed to bake cookies, and as I spied the new bag of marshmallows, I smiled, and knew I'd made my decision. I pulled out the recipe, and then proceeded to assemble ingredients. I paused when I got to the cocoa. I had just picked up a can of Hershey's Special Dark cocoa, and had yet to use it. Could this be the opportunity to give it a try? I could think of nothing better. So I grabbed the Special Dark. As I'm putting the ingredients together, I spied the 1/4 cup of milk. I thought about that for a second, and my eye caught my cup of coffee. It didn't take long for me to decide to swap out the milk for coffee. One thing I noticed right away about this cocoa is the color. My cookie dough turned almost black- really, an Oreo color. I could not wait, for the first taste of cookie. As soon as they were cool to the touch, one found their way to my mouth. And let me tell you, I never thought my favorite cookie could be improved upon, but this... this is a special cookie. I can't tell you if the coffee actually made a difference or not, but there will certainly be coffee in future editions of Choco-Marshmallow Cookies. The picture below is before they got their layer of frosting.
And here we have a picture of the finished product. These guys have a layer of dark chocolate buttermcream and a smattering of festive sprinkles. I love how the frosting hides the marshmallow underneath.