Marshmallows and Cocoa

Welcome to a special edition of Cooking with Scott. This week I have ventured out and partnered with goldenlifephx in a joint venture of baking awesomeness. This week she made hot chocolate from a Dorie Greenspan recipe. So, we came up with a slight twist for this. What goes better with hot chocolate that marshmallows?
For my part I utilized a marshmallow recipe from Joy the Baker. There is nothing fancy about this recipe and if I can make it any one can.
Start by greasing an 8 x 8 and making sure it is well coated with powdered sugar.

Then, break out your stand mixer with whisk attachment. Thankfully as always, I have my reliable Kitchen Aid mixer for this. Put in your cold water and gelatin, and set this aside to rest while you work on the next part.

While your gelatin rest break out your saucepan. Add in the sugar, corn syrup, salt and water and heat it up. Stir this until the sugar dissolves, then set in your candy thermometer and heat till 240 degrees.

Once you have that done turn your mixer on, and then slowly add in the sugar mixture. To fast will cause splashing and unnecessary spatter. Once it is all in turn your mixer to high and mix until you get a think white texture.

Here’s the fun part. If you want add vanilla, coconut, food coloring, or anything you like to get different colors and flavors. When you do this blend it for another few minutes.
With the bowl cool to touch wet a spatula and scrape the mixture into your pan. Smooth the top with the spatula, coat with powdered sugar and let your marshmallows rest for at least four hours.

I actually waited over night to remove mine from the pan. When you remove them from the pan and cut them, toss them in more powdered sugar to avoid stickiness.

From there use them as you please. These sweet treats went great with the hot chocolate. As they melted it added an extra richness and frothiness to the hot chocolate, It was smooth, rich, and delicious. To find out more about this delicious cocoa and see the final product, head over to goldenlifephx and give her blog a look.

Well that is it for this week’s Cooking with Scott. Be on the lookout for other great desert recipes over the rest of this year that your friends and family are sure to enjoy.

Strawberry Spectacular

Welcome to a special collaborative edition of Cooking with Scott. This week I partnered with Christie at GoldenLifePHX on WordPress. This special edition is brought to you courtesy of the abundance of strawberries we were able to purchase from the 3000 Club at Market on the Move.
What is Market on the Move? I am glad you asked. Market on the Move is part of a charitable organization where for a small $10.00 donation you can get up to 60 pounds of food. The program is designed for you to share the produce, canned goods, water, and other items with friends, family, neighbors, or others in need. Market on the Move buys produce from produce brokers that was rejected for distribution for it not being the right shape, lack of demand, or it is not perfect quality for various reason before it ends up in the landfills. If you check out their Facebook page you can find a location near you and see what this week’s shipment will contain.
This week they were having a special on strawberries. While some items come with a limit on what you can get, the strawberries were unlimited. If you don’t mind a little processing and have some jam or other recipes ready to go this is a great way to get a lot of strawberries for a low cost. It is also a great way to get just about anything you may need (even girl scout cookies). Just be warned the sweeter the deal the longer the line can be, but if you go, bring a wagon or large bag and discover this hidden gem.
Christie and I did just that. Of the two flats of strawberries we were able to save more than half. The fist idea was jam, the second was this week’s recipe from Joy the Baker‘s book Homemade Decadence: Strawberry-Ginger Crumb Cobbler.
This recipe was broken down into two simple parts, the topping, and the filling. The topping is a breeze of mixing butter, flour, brown sugar, oats, salt, and a nut of your choice together in a medium bowl. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty and really toss the topping together.

Next get out your baking dish and add the strawberries, sugar, ginger, and cornstarch. Mix them all together with a small handful of topping until everything is well incorporated. Once complete, top it all off with the remaining crumble topping and slide it into the oven for 40-45 minutes.

Once done let it cool off a bit and serve with a nice big scoop of vanilla ice-cream for a sweet summer treat.

Well that is it for this week’s collaborative Cooking with Scott. Tune in next week for another delicious recipe that you can share with friends, family, or neighbors. As always if you would like the full recipe get a copy of her book Homemade Decadence. Well until next time enjoy what you bake, and bake what you enjoy.

-Scott-