The idea for these treats came from an article for kids in National Geographic Little Kids.  The marshmallow crispy cereal part is mixed up, then pressed into a cookie cutter, in this case a lovely heart. I used leftover strawberry icing from my daughter’s birthday cake, which I have been keeping in the freezer, to make them pink. On top are dried cranberries on half and the other half dried cranberries and almonds.

They look so whimsical, but they are oh so tasty! The strawberry icing sort of seeps into the crispy part, melding all the flavours together and the cranberries and almonds give a nice textural difference. If you make these with kids, make sure the cereal part is not too hot for them to handle. It will harden up quickly as it cools and you may have to end up reheating it, especially if everyone wants to be artistic or perfect. Just give it some time and it will all come together nicely.

This is a good project to really get your hands into. My kids all loved smooshing the cereal into the cookie cutter, even the one-year-old, though he was more interested in eating it . In the end we got 23 hearts, including the ones we all ate before I took the picture.

Sweetheart Marshmallow Crispy Treats

55g (4 tablespoons) butter

200g (4 cups) mini marshmallows

180g (4 cups) gluten-free crispy rice cereal

pink icing (You could use food colouring or ready made icing if you prefer)

dried cranberries (optional, use any decoration you like)

almonds (optional)

Melt the marshmallows and butter together in a saucepan. After it is all nice, smooth, and gooey, add the crispy rice cereal. Have a bowl of water to dip your hands in, a platter for the treats, and as many cookie cutters as you like ready on the side. For kids it is nice for each to have their own, but I had mine all share one so everyone had to take turns.

Get your hands wet, then pick up a fistful of the crispy-rice mixture and smoosh it into the cookie cutter until it fills it evenly. Gently remove the cookie cutter and place the treat on the platter. Repeat until you run out of cereal mixture.

Decorate each sweetheart with a thin layer of pink icing and a few cranberries and/or almonds. Enjoy!

I thought of putting these brownies together when I saw Paula Deen making Maggie’s Decadent Brownies on the Food Network. She said it reminded her of her Marsh Mud Cake. There are so many different variations on this recipe that whatever floats your boat you could find something that suits.

I don’t usually do mixes. I prefer to mix up a substitute for the mix if the recipe calls for it, but my grandmother gave me Bob’s Red Mill Brownie Mix for Christmas, so I baked it up in this recipe to see what it would be like. I’ve made four things from gluten-free mixes ever I think, including this one. Sometimes they can be fun to experiment with and the better ones taste pretty good.

These were good for what they are: something easy to whip up. They were best just out of the oven. After they cooled I found them too salty. Heating them up improved the richness of the taste but upped the sweet factor so much that I found them too sweet. The nuts softened up in the baking and I would have preferred them crunchier. Next time I would put the nuts on top of the baked brownies after the marshmallows instead. With ice cream these brownies really found a balance, especially with strawberry, reminding me of a chocolate-covered strawberry.

Ooey Gooey Rocky Road Fudge Brownies

1 Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free brownie mix

170g (3/4 cup) butter, melted

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

175 ml (3/4 cup) warm water

120g (1 cup) chopped pecans

150g (3 cups) mini marshmallows

Fudge Topping

1 395g (14 oz) tin condensed milk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

340g (12 oz) semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 175C (350F). Grease a 23 x 33 cm (9 x 13 inch) baking dish. Place brownie mix in a bowl. Beat in melted butter, vanilla extract, water, and pecans until combined. Pour batter into prepared dish and bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Immediately sprinkle with marshmallows, so the hot brownies melt them a bit and they get all nice and gooey. Next, prepare the topping: in a saucepan over low heat, combine the milk, vanilla extract, and chocolate chips. Stir until the chocolate chips are melted. Remove from heat and pour over the brownies. Spread the topping out evenly, so every bite gets as much of all three layers as possible . Enjoy!

It was a perfect combination. The white chocolate accentuates the taste of the marshmallow and the buttery cashews work well with the cranberries. The white chocolate helped to bind everything as well. With the amount of marshmallows I had, or perhaps how this batch turned out, they seemed less gooey. If I had added more cereal, or even more cranberries and nuts, my treats would have fallen apart.

Now, if you are making these gluten-free be careful, as I know most of you are, to read the labels on the cereal. Most crispy rice cereals, Rice Krispies included, have barley malt in them. That’s why my marshmallow crispy treats are chocolate, because the only gluten-free crispy rice cereal I could find had cocoa in it. Not that that’s necessarily a problem; more chocolate is good for you, right, all those antioxidants?

Holiday Marshmallow Crispy Treats

55g (4 tablespoons) butter

180g (4 cups) gluten-free crispy rice cereal

200g (4 cups) mini marshmallows (I used 32 large marshmallows, what I had left over)

120g (1 cup) cashews

120g (1 cup) dried cranberries

284g (10 ounces) white chocolate chips

Grease or line a tin with foil or paper. Use any size. The larger it is the thinner the treats. Anna recommends a smaller one for more dramatic results. I used a larger one. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat. Stir in the marshmallows until they are melted. Remove from heat, then stir in crispy rice cereal, dried cranberries, cashews, then the white chocolate chips. If you don’t stir in the white chocolate chips last then they will melt all over. If that doesn’t bother you, then don’t worry.

Spread the mixture evenly into prepared tin. They will harden up as they cool. Cool completely and slice into squares. Enjoy!

I went back to my recipe list to find more that use marshmallow. (I believe there will be only one more after this one, I promise!) This recipe is from Laurie at Quirky Cupcake. She adapted a recipe from Deb at Smitten Kitchen. Laurie says her marshmallow disappeared into the blondie and she wouldn’t melt them next time. I decided to follow her advice and instead poked all of them into the batter. Well, they certainly didn’t disappear. Instead they toasted up as if roasted over a fire. Each bit of marshmallow was sweet and crispy. If the marshmallow were mixed in they might melt and stay gooey.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t as pleased with the rest. There just wasn’t enough banana and peanut butter for me. I didn’t swirl the peanut butter filling into the blondie, but it didn’t taste of peanut butter by itself either. Mixing them together might blend the flavours better, but I’m not so sure. Browning the butter might add some depth. Next time, I would double the amount of peanut butter especially, add another banana, and add some vanilla extract to the topping. It certainly does look interesting though. My daughter called it a pizza!  Thanks Laurie and Deb for sharing this recipe.

Memphis Fluffernutter Blondies

115g (8 tablespoons) butter, melted

200g (1 cup) brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla or 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Pinch of salt

110g (1 cup) gluten-free flour blend (xanthan gum is not necessary but won’t hurt if your blend has it)

1-2 bananas, mashed

Peanut Butter Filling

170g (6 oz) cream cheese

115g (1/2 cup) peanut butter

55g (1/4 cup) caster sugar

1 egg

2 tablespoons milk

Marshmallow

Half a bag of marshmallow (I used 16 large ones)

15g (1 tablespoon) butter

Preheat oven to 175C (350F). Butter a 20 cm (8 inch) square tin. Mix melted butter with brown sugar and beat until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla or almond extract. Add salt, flour, and banana and mix until well incorporated. Pour into prepared tin.

Prepare peanut butter filling by beating cream cheese, peanut butter, sugar, egg, and milk until smooth and creamy. (Mine was a bit lumpy.) Pour mixture over blondie batter in tin.

Melt marshmallow and butter in a sauce pan over medium heat until smooth. Pour over peanut butter and blondie batter in tin. Swirl with a knife to mix the three components together.

Bake for 30 minutes or until set in the middle. (I had to bake mine for 25 extra minutes). Cool completely before cutting them.

I have a list of recipes. Whenever I find a recipe, usually on a blog or a recipe site, I put it on my list. My list is incredibly long and the point of it is not really to bake everything on it, though I certainly aspire to that, but to not forget recipes I’ve found. Since I now have a surplus of marshmallow, I went looking for recipes using marshmallow. This recipe for Fluffernutter Brownies is from Virtual Frolic. She put it together from David Lebovitz’s Dulce de Leche Brownies and a Peanut Butter Swirl from Good Housekeeping. I put bits of whole marshmallow in between the layers on one side and you can see on the right where it is darker, the marshmallow bubbled up and melted there. These brownies have a difference in texture between the peanut butter and chocolate layers that is pleasing.

Fluffernutter Brownies

115g (8 tablespoons) salted or unsalted butter, cut into pieces

170g (6oz) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

25g (1/4 cup) unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

3 large eggs

200g (1 cup) caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

140g (1 cup) gluten-free flour blend (xanthan gum is not necessary, but won’t hurt if your blend has it)

optional: 100g (1 cup) toasted pecans or walnuts, coarsely chopped

Peanut Butter Swirl:

225g (1 cup) peanut butter

75g (1/3 cup) caster sugar

55g (4 tablespoons) butter, softened

15g (2 tablespoons) gluten-free flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

16 large marshmallow, melted

Preheat the oven to 175C (350 F). Line a 20 cm (8 in) square tin with foil, creating an overhang over the sides.

Melt the butter in a bowl (heatproof) set over a pot of boiling water, essentially a double boiler. Add the chocolate and stir until the chocolate is melted. Remove from heat and whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, then stir in the sugar, vanilla extract, then the flour. Mix in the nuts, if using.

Now for the peanut butter swirl. Beat together butter, peanut butter, sugar, flour, vanilla extract, and egg until smooth and well blended. Melt the marshmallow and add to the rest. Scrape half the chocolate batter into the prepared tin. Spoon about 2/3rds to 3/4th of the peanut butter swirl onto the chocolate batter. Spread the remaining chocolate batter over the top. Drop spoonfuls of the remaining peanut butter swirl over the top of that. Use a knife to swirl the peanut butter slightly, then it lives up to its name. So it goes: chocolate, peanut butter, chocolate, peanut butter. (I put bits of whole marshmallow between the layers one one side, but it adds a stickiness that not everyone may prefer.)

Bake for 35 to 45 minutes. (Mine were done in 35.) The brownies are done when they feel slightly firm to the touch. Remove from the oven and cool completely.

Yes, there really is a cake under there…somewhere.

I barely managed to save this cake from being a puddle of muddy goo. The recipe for the cake is from Diana’s Desserts. The marshmallow is from Grouprecipes. I love to try different recipes and experiment with them. I had the idea to make a chocolate cake covered in marshmallow. Sadly, my vision did not completely manifest as expected but came close. Instead of two layers of marshmallow there is only one on top of the cake.

It is a rich chocolatey cake and the marshmallow adds a nice contrast in texture. I can only imagine how it would be with TWO layers of marshmallow.

To assemble the cake, bake the cake first, then cool completely. Make the icing and spread a thin layer on the bottom layer of the cake. Next, make the marshmallow. It sets if you wait too long, so spread the marshmallow on top of the icing and on top of the other layer and wait a bit for it to set. Place the top layer on top and ice the cake with the chocolate icing.

The icing and marshmallow recipes make more than you need for a cake. Unless you want chocolate icing and marshmallow coming out of everywhere, making a smaller batch is wise. I didn’t understand at first why my marshmallow was not firming up. I tried reheating it and mixing it with egg whites; nothing worked, I had only a foamy mess.

After I whipped up the leftover syrup I had and it firmed up I saw that the issue was how big the recipe was. I whipped up the semi-set marshmallow in three batches, but only after I had put some on the bottom layer, waited, then put the top layer on only to have marshmallow goo come frothing out. I wish I had discovered the solution earlier, but at least the cake came together better than it would have with puddles of wet marshmallow everywhere. It took four, yes FOUR, hours to put this cake together, but it was worth it. The cake is delicious.

Notes: To make the cake recipe gluten-free, substitute gluten-free flour blend for the other flour and add 2 teaspoons xanthan gum. I used 1/3rd amaranth flour, 1/3rd cornflour (cornstarch), and 1/3rd sweet rice flour. I added vanilla extract to the marshmallow. Fold in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract after the marshmallow has been whipped up.