Rocky Road Debacle

So, today I discovered a valuable lesson in baking...and that lesson is that marshmallows don't bake well. Here's the back story:

I decided to make a batch of cookies for after dinner - we were having our new neighbors over, and I just thought that some cookies after the meal might be really nice. 'And what could be better,' I thought to myself, 'than extra special cookies?!' So, into my regular drop cookie base (the chocolate chip cookie dough before you add the chips), I added 1/4 C cocoa powder, about 1.5-2 C of marshmallows, and a full bag of Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips.

The dough tasted amazing...I even loved the texture that the chip/marshmallow dynamic created. I was thrilled! I love it when I come up with something a bit out of the ordinary but still tasty! So then, I carefully set my oven to 350, and started portioning out the dough.

Into the oven went my tasty little morsels, and the timer was set for 13 minutes...

When I went to retrieve the cookies, this is when I discovered that marshmallows are not the best ingredient to add to a baked good. You know the way they puff up and get all gooey when you toast them over a camp fire (or when you heat them in the microwave for "gotta have them right now" smores)? Well, that's what they did in my oven...to my delicious cookie dough...the puffed out and they ooooooozed everywhere! And when I pulled the "cookies" out, I had an ooey gooey mess that cooled and hardened quickly and didn't want to come off of my cookie sheet...

The good news is that there are 2 silver linings in this story:
1) I now have phenomenal dough that I will either put into ice cream or may try to mix into a cheesecake and
2) even the cookie crumble mess that came out of my oven is still tasty (and believe me, I am not afraid to eat them as dough or as ooey gooey baked mess!)....

Until next time, happy eating!

~PS, I'll be sure to let you know what I do with this double chocolate marshmallow batter... ;-) If you have ideas, send them my way!