The flower petals have dropped. Tiny, hard berries are taunting me with their promise. It will be quite some time before they will be ripe and ready for picking. Normally, when I can’t stand the wait for this summer’s fruit, I usually have last year’s berries stashed in my freezer to bake with while I oh-so-patiently wait for this year’s fruit to mature. With the move this year, we gifted our stash to friends at the Lake. So, I wait.

We all know I’m not really going to wait to play in the kitchen. 😉 Now that I have not one, but two grocery stores nearby, I don’t have to keep a stocked pantry like we did at the Lake. But pantry items do drive inspiration. We mailed quite a bit of dry goods that we hadn’t used up. Boxes of pasta, pounds of rice and cans of pumpkin puree didn’t trigger any ideas. There was this bag of mini-marshmallows tucked away. I had purchased them for hot cocoa. What about hot cocoa cookies? Rocky road bars? Marshmallow thumbprints? None of these ideas appealed to me. Then I thought s’mores! I am a s’mores fan, but only in small quantities. I enjoy the summertime fireside treat in ones or twos. What if the essence of chocolate, graham crackers, and toasted marshmallows were featured in cookies instead of their original over-sweet form? The result? A chewy cookie with bursts of chocolate, crunches of graham cracker, and bites of gooey marshmallow. 

The recipe was a successful distraction until the real show starts. (C’mon berries!) Between now and then, I will keep myself occupied with processing spruce tip syrup. And maybe figuring out a way to bake with pasta, rice, and pumpkin? Or not.

Double Chocolate S’more Cookies – small batch

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tbsp dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1 tsp baking soda
• Pinch salt
• 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips 
• 1/2 cup mini marshmallows (and a few extra for finishing)
• 1 sheet graham cracker, roughly chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
3. In a bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
4. Using electric mixer, beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy. 
5. Mix in vanilla. 
6. Mix in egg. 
7. Slowly add in flour mixture. Mix until incorporated.
8. Fold in chocolate chips, marshmallows and chopped graham cracker.
9. I used a 1 1/2 tbsp cookie scoop to spoon out 12 portions of dough to place on prepared cookie sheet.
10. Bake cookies for 10 minutes. 
11. Quickly remove baking sheet from oven and add a few more marshmallows on each cookie. Place back in the oven for 2 additional minutes.
12. When done, cookies will be firm on the edges and soft in the middle. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes on sheet before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.
13. Repeat steps 9 – 11 with remaining dough.