S'mores Brownie Ice Cream Sandwiches

I know I promised the matcha mochi cupcake recipe next, but apparently today is National Ice Cream Sandwich Day (who knew?)!  So I'm going to take a little break from the Japan Night menu and bring you one of my latest creations.

I saw this recipe a couple of months ago for a Saltine Cracker Brownie Ice Cream Sandwich and immediately thought, why would you use saltines when you could use graham crackers and make it a s'mores brownie ice cream sandwich?!  And then I thought, "Self, if you're going to make a s'mores brownie ice cream sandwich, you might as well make a toasted marshmallow ice cream to put in it."

I found this recipe on Baking Bites for marshmallow ice cream that doesn't need an ice cream maker, so really anyone can make this!  I did take the extra step of toasting the marshmallows in the broiler first to try to make it taste a little more like a classic campfire s'more.

As a warning, this is not a quick and easy recipe; I'd consider it more of a labor of love.  I did cheat a little and use a brownie mix instead of making the brownies from scratch, but I think you'll be able to forgive me.  =)

S'mores Brownie Ice Cream Sandwiches
makes about 24 sandwiches

4 cups mini-marshmallows
1 box graham crackers
1 package family size brownie mix (for a 9"x13" pan), prepared for the chewy version
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 cups whole milk
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups heavy cream

Turn the broiler on in your oven.

Line a baking sheet with a Silpat, foil, or parchment paper.  Spread the marshmallows out in a single layer.

Broil the marshmallows for 1 minute or until nice and toasted.  Remove from oven and chill in the freezer so that it is easier to remove from the baking sheet.  Reduce the temperature in the oven to 350°F.

In the meantime, carefully break the graham crackers into squares.  Spread them out on the bottom of a 9"x13" pan and a 9"x9" pan to make sure you have enough to cover the surface area twice.  You may have to break up some of the squares to make them fit.

Remove the graham crackers and line the bottom of the two pans with parchment paper.  Spray with cooking spray.

Pour a little more than half the brownie batter into the larger pan and the rest into the smaller pan.  You want to try to get the same thickness in both pans.

Brush both sides of the graham crackers with the melted butter and cover the bottom of the two pans with half the crackers.  Place the rest of the crackers onto another baking sheet.

Put the two brownie pans on the middle rack of your oven and the sheet with the graham crackers on the lower rack.  Bake for 10 minutes and start checking to see if the brownies are close to done.  You want them to still be a little gooey (they will continue to cook once out of the oven and set upon cooling) but not raw and liquidy.  Once the brownies are ready, remove all the pans and the sheet from the oven and allow to cool.  After ten minutes, move the brownies to the freezer to chill for at least 30 minutes.

While the brownies are chilling, place the toasted marshmallows in a medium pot and add the milk.  Cook over medium-high, stirring regularly, until the marshmallows melt into the milk.  Remove from heat, stir in vanilla extract and allow to cool. Chill until cold.

Take the brownie-cracker pans out of the freezer. Lift and peel the parchment paper to remove it from the pan. Then, line the pan again with parchment paper and invert the brownie and cracker back into the pan so that now, the cracker-layer is facing down and lining the pan. If you have trimmed/uneven cracker, take note of which sides the uneven crackers are. You’ll want to match the top and bottom layer so you can make even cuts later.

When marshmallow mixture is cold, beat whipped cream to soft peaks and fold into the marshmallow base.

Pour the ice cream batter on top of the brownie and smooth the top with a spoon.

Arrange the crackers on top of the ice cream batter, making sure that the cracker arrangement matches the bottom cracker-layer (the uneven cracker pieces should be on the same side of the pan).

Move the pan back into the freezer to harden, at least 8 hours to overnight.

Cut between each crackers into little sandwiches. Wrap each with plastic wrap and store in the freezer.

The texture of the toasted marshmallow ice cream was different from the churned ice creams I'm used to; it was a lot more airy and less creamy.  Normally I probably wouldn't have liked that, but I for this particular ice cream sandwich I think it works really well because it reminded me of a real marshmallow!

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Passion Fruit Marshmallows

Just like I did with Smitten Kitchen's caramels, I wanted to try to make her marshmallows with my own personal favorite flavor:  passion fruit!  It turned out to be incredibly easy; I just substituted the 1/2 cup of water that you dissolve the gelatin in with a 1/2 cup of passion fruit puree!

 
Passion Fruit Marshmallows
Makes about 96 1-inch cubed marshmallows

About 1 cup confectioners sugar
3 1/2 envelopes (2 tablespoons plus 2 1/2 teaspoons) unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup passion fruit puree, thawed but cold
1/2 cup cold water
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large egg whites, at room temperature
Yellow gel food coloring (optional)

 
Oil bottom and sides of a 13- by 9- by 2-inch rectangular metal baking pan and dust bottom and sides with some confectioners sugar.

 
In bowl of a standing electric mixer sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold passion fruit puree and let stand to soften.

 
If all the gelatin does not dissolve, gently combine with a spoon so that none of the gelatin powder is left dry.

 
In a 3-quart heavy saucepan cook granulated sugar, corn syrup, 1/2 cup of cold water, and salt over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon, until sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to moderate and boil mixture, without stirring, until a candy or digital thermometer registers 240°F, about 12 minutes. Remove pan from heat and pour sugar mixture over gelatin mixture, stirring until gelatin is dissolved.

 
With standing mixer beat mixture on high speed until white, thick, and nearly tripled in volume, about six minutes.

In separate medium bowl with cleaned beaters beat egg whites until they just hold stiff peaks.

 
Beat whites into sugar mixture until just combined.  At this point, if you would like to color your marshmallows, you can add a few drops of yellow food coloring.  This also helps let you know when the egg whites have been fully combined in the mixture.  (I only added 1 drop, and you can barely tell in these pictures that the marshmallows aren't white.)

 
Pour mixture into baking pan.  This is probably the trickiest part of the whole operation.

 
Try to smooth out the marshmallow fluff as best you can.  I take it back; this is the trickiest part.  It's okay if you don't get it perfectly smooth because then it's super obvious that it's homemade!

 
Sift 1/4 cup confectioners sugar evenly over top.

 
Chill marshmallow, uncovered, until firm, at least three hours, and up to one day.

 
Run a thin knife around edges of pan and invert pan onto a large cutting board. Lifting up one corner of inverted pan, with fingers loosen marshmallow and ease onto cutting board. With a large knife cut marshmallow into roughly one-inch cubes.

 
Sift remaining confectioners’ sugar back into your now-empty baking pan, and working in batches, roll the marshmallows through it, on all six sides, before shaking off the excess and packing them away.

Marshmallows keep in an airtight container at cool room temperature 1 week.

 
These marshmallows were all that I hoped they would be:  soft and bouncy and tart and sweet.  They taste like pure sunshine to me.  If I had an experience with a Dementor, I'd eat one of these afterwards, and it would make me feel better than chocolate could.  ^_^

Three years ago:  Lemon Pudding Cake

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Vanilla & Cinnamon Marshmallows

I begged my friend, Andy, to throw a "Winter Warmer" just so I could have an excuse to make these marshmallows.  They're perfect for dunking in hot chocolate, toasting over a flame, or even just eating by themselves.

 
Vanilla & Cinnamon Marshmallows (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)
Makes about 96 1-inch cubed marshmallows

About 1 cup confectioners sugar
3 1/2 envelopes (2 tablespoons plus 2 1/2 teaspoons) unflavored gelatin
1 cup cold water, divided
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large egg whites, at room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla
Ground cinnamon

Oil bottom and sides of a 13- by 9- by 2-inch rectangular metal baking pan and dust bottom and sides with some confectioners’ sugar.

 
In bowl of a standing electric mixer or in a large bowl sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold cold water, and let stand to soften.  (It's not written in the SK recipe, but see how the top layer of gelatin powder doesn't get wet?  Don't leave it like that; stir it around a little so that it's all combined, which I failed to do with this batch, although if you forget, it's not the end of the world.)

 
In a 3-quart heavy saucepan cook granulated sugar, corn syrup, second 1/2 cup of cold water, and salt over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon, until sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to moderate and boil mixture, without stirring, until a candy or digital thermometer registers 240°F, about 12 minutes. Remove pan from heat and pour sugar mixture over gelatin mixture, stirring until gelatin is dissolved.  (At this point it's going to smell really bad, and you're going to wonder if the marshmallows will even be edible.  They will be, trust me.)

 
With standing mixer beat mixture on high speed until white, thick, and nearly tripled in volume, about six minutes.

 
In separate medium bowl with cleaned beaters beat egg whites until they just hold stiff peaks. Beat whites and vanilla into sugar mixture until just combined.

 
Pour mixture into baking pan. Sift 1/4 cup confectioners sugar evenly over top.

 
Chill marshmallow, uncovered, until firm, at least three hours, and up to one day.

 
Run a thin knife around edges of pan and invert pan onto a large cutting board. Lifting up one corner of inverted pan, with fingers loosen marshmallow and ease onto cutting board. With a large knife cut marshmallow into roughly one-inch cubes. (An oiled pizza cutter works well here too.)

 
Sift remaining confectioners’ sugar back into your now-empty baking pan, and roll the marshmallows through it, on all six sides, before shaking off the excess and packing them away.  (I found it was easiest to do this in batches rather than all at once.)

 
Marshmallows keep in an airtight container at cool room temperature 1 week.

This is where the recipe from Smitten Kitchen stops.  I tasted the marshmallows at this point, and they were perfect in texture--springy and fluffy just like she promised.  The taste was just a little too...one dimensional for me, though.  Vanilla in its other definition.  It was too late to add any wet ingredients like another flavor extract, but then I thought, what if I just toss it with some cinnamon?  Cinnamon and sugar are such a great flavor combination already (think cinnamon toast or snickerdoodles), it couldn't hurt to try.  So I plopped a few marshmallows in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag and sprinkled in a few dashes of ground cinnamon.  A few shakes later, the cinnamon was pretty evenly distributed.

 
It came down to the taste test:  would it be enough?  Too strong?  It turned out perfect!  The cinnamon added just enough spicy heat to give the marshmallows some depth while still remaining light and airy.  Unfortunately I didn't measure out how much cinnamon I tossed in there; it was literally just a couple of shakes.  I'd say start off with a little, shake, and taste.  If you want, you can always add more, but it's pretty hard to remove the cinnamon if you add too much.

Next time:  Passion Fruit Marshmallows!
Four years ago:  Toasted Coconut Ice Cream with Sesame Brittle and Crystallized Ginger

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Brown Butter Marshmallow Popcorn

When I saw this recipe for Caramel Marshmallow Popcorn, I just knew I had to make it.  Rice Krispies Treats are one of my favorite snacks, and well, you all know how much I love popcorn.  The only thing is, I noticed in a couple of the comments that the popcorn would get really, really hard after it cooled down, and I wanted something more like the softer texture of Rice Krispies treats rather than caramel corn.

I figured the reason it was getting hard was the addition of brown sugar, so I decided to stick with a more traditional Rice Krispies treat recipe with just marshmallows and butter.  But I couldn't help tweaking it a bit based on my friend Ilene's Brown Butter Rice Krispies Treats post by first browning the butter and adding some vanilla bean and salt.

Brown Butter Marshmallow Popcorn

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1/2 vanilla bean
1 10 oz. bag mini marshmallows
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
9 cups popped popcorn (unpopped kernels removed)

 
In a large pot, melt the butter on low heat.

 
Split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise, and scrape out the seeds.  Add to the melted butter.

Continue to cook the butter on low until the milk solids start to brown.

Remove from heat, add the salt and mini marshmallows and stir to combine.

 
Return the pot to low heat and stir to completely melt the marshmallows.

 
Once the marshmallows have completely melted, add the popcorn and stir to combine.

 
Line a baking dish with parchment paper and spray with baking spray.  Pour the popcorn into the dish and allow to cool.

The cooled popcorn never got as crunchy as Rice Krispies Treat do, but that might be because I didn't use a full 9 cups of popcorn and the popcorn to marshmallow ratio was off.  I really loved how the vanilla bean and browned butter brought the marshmallows and popcorn to a-whole-nother level.  When I make this again, I'd probably add more salt and maybe some butter flavoring to reinforce the popcorn flavor (as well as make sure I have enough popcorn to start off with). Or just use a bag of butter flavored microwave popcorn!  =)

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