Marshmallows, Chocolate and Peanut Butter, Oh My!

I've noticed that there are some themes to our baking. We cook a bunch of things with an ingredient, and then move onto something else. This has definitely been a big marshmallow week! But before we talk about that, we have also made some other good things.

Have you ever heard of Korean egg bread? We hadn't, but my mom saw this recipe and thought that it might be fun to try. These are made in a muffin tin and have bread dough on the bottom and then an egg yolk and cheese and tomato on top. The recipe has bacon too, but we used smoked salmon instead. I liked these a lot. My dad thought that next time they would be better with less bread and more egg. My brother didn't like that the yolks came out hard and thought that they tasted overcooked. He likes his yolks to be jammy. My mom said that next time she might try baking the bottoms for a while first, and then adding the egg, to try to keep the yolk softer. This is definitely the kind of recipe that you can adjust, so I think it will be worth trying again.

The Korean name for this is Gyeran Bbang.

A really fun breakfast project that we made was monkey bread. Monkey bread is balls of dough similar to cinnamon rolls that are baked together. It's called monkey bread because you can pull tear the balls apart and eat it right up like a bunch of monkeys would! We made the dough the night before and then pulled it out in the morning to finish rising. Then we rolled it into balls and dipped each ball into melted butter and then rolled it in cinnamon sugar and layered the balls in a bundt pan.

This is my brother and sister and me dipping our dough balls in the butter and sugar.

And this is what it looked like layered in the bundt pan.

Then it had a second rise and we baked it.

This smelled delicious baking!

And once we flipped it out of the pan, we drizzled icing over the top. My brother said that this was one of his favorite breakfasts and I agree. He and my sister said that they especially liked the texture.

I thought that the icing looked very pretty and was the perfect final touch!

We had actually made monkey bread one time before, using a different recipe. My Uncle TaTa came to visit us for his birthday when I was really little. My mom had asked him what he wanted for his birthday, and he had said "a barrel of monkeys," because he didn't want my mom to buy him anything. So we made him monkey bread and bought him a monkey tie! But that monkey bread definitely didn't turn out as well and fell apart when we tried to take it out of the pan.

That monkey bread tasted good too, but it definitely looked prettier this time!!!!!

Now I bet that you thought that we were finally done with rhubarb, but not so fast! We did make two last rhubarb recipes and they were both really good. The first was rhubarb muffins. These have a sugary streusel topping that is the best part.

Doesn't the streusel on top look good?

Our other rhubarb recipe was a rhubarb almond cake. This recipe uses almond paste, which is different from marzipan. Marzipan is much sweeter, and is usually used for decoration. We make carrots to go on top of carrot cake with it sometimes! Almond paste looks similar, but is used as an ingredient in baking that gives a nice almond flavor. Of all of our rhubarb cakes, Rachel said that this one was her favorite. So I guess we saved the best for last!

This cake was simple but very flavorful.

But now, we really are done with rhubarb. Most of what we have made lately has been some combination of marshmallows, chocolate and peanut butter. And one of the most exciting things that happened during quarantine is that I got a package from a secret admirer and it went perfectly with our current baking theme!!!!!!! I knew who it was from right away though! My package had Butterfinger and 5th Avenue bars in it and the note said that it was time for a taste test. Do you remember how when we made our Butterfinger cookies I explained that my Uncle TaTa thinks that 5th Avenues are way better? Well that's how I knew that my package was from him!!! So we did our taste test, as instructed. My mom is NOT pleased with these results, but I want my blog to be honest. SO....here's what happened. My dad, Rachel, my brother and I, liked the 5th Avenue. My mom and my sister liked the Butterfinger. But 4 to 2 means that 5th Avenue won. Congratulations TaTa!!!!! The Butterfinger was sweeter, but the 5th Avenue tasted more like real peanut butter.

Even my mom had to admit that the 5th Avenue on the left chopped up much more nicely than the Butterfinger on the right.

We actually made chocolate marshmallow cookies that had peanut butter in them too. They were delicious!! We made our cookie batter and partially baked our cookies, but then you put marshmallow halves on each one before they finish baking.

The marshmallows got gooey and delicious in the oven!

Then they got frosted and we added sprinkles. The icing had cocoa powder in it and my mom thought that it tasted powdery, but we all still really liked these cookies.

I thought that the way that the icing and marshmallow and cookie all came together in each bite was very special.

Our next dessert was a malted chocolate pudding cake. First you make a base batter, and then you sprinkle a second set of dry ingredients over the top. And then you pour boiling water over the entire thing before you put in in the oven! That step is definitely a little bit weird!!

The boiling water helps create two separate layers within the cake.

This doesn't look super pretty, but you can see how there are separate sticky darker chocolate pudding parts.

Our next cake was a s'mores cake and it was completely different from anything that we had ever made before. It was a kind of cake called an icebox cake, and you don't bake it. You layer cookies or biscuits with frostings or fillings and as they sit in the fridge for a day or two, they soften. We made a marshmallow filling. It was VERY stiff and sticky!

I thought that the filling looked very pretty!

We layered graham crackers, marshmallow filling and chocolate frosting to make our cake.

We let it sit in the fridge overnight. And then we took it out and added more marshmallow filling on top and torched it. We finally got butane for our torch, so we didn't have to try to use a lighter this time! Yay!!! My sister kept saying that we were "torturing" it instead of "torching" it, which was very funny!

This is what it looked like when we were done. This cake was DELICIOUS!!! My mom especially was in love with it!!!!

And I thought that it looked beautiful sliced.

We also made another cake with marshmallow frosting. And this was the frosting that we ended up using to fill our oatmeal creme pies! The cake was a fluffernutter cake. It was a layer of peanut butter cake with marshmallow frosting and chopped peanut butter cups on top.

My mom let me decorate this.

We all loved the frosting. My mom thought that the cake was a little bit dry though. But we would still definitely make it again.

We went to visit my former kindergarten teacher Ms. B this week. She doesn't really love sweets, but she does love rice krispie treats. So we made her those!!! We had never baked rice krispie treats before, but it was fun and easy. We picked a recipe that used brown butter, which added more flavor. These had the perfect balance of butter, marshmallow and cereal. They were gooey but not too gooey. I highly recommend them. And Ms. B is an expert and she said that they were perfect!!!!!

After that, we decided to do another version of rice krispie treats called avalanche bars. These have peanut butter and chocolate chips in them and I liked them even more than the plain version. They were very easy to make and came out perfectly!!!

I've loved all of our chocolate and peanut butter and marshmallow baking. We haven't decided what our next theme is going to be, so we're open to suggestions for sure!!!!!