Recently I came across a wickedly tasty-looking brownie recipe from Pass The Sushi.  They contain brown butter – always a winner – and looked dark, moist, and delicious.  Especially since they required unsweetened cocoa powder I absolutely had to give them a try.

Unfortunately the recipe called for walnuts, and while I’m not specifically prejudiced I typically prefer flavors other than nuts in my brownies.  I think because I’d recently been reading some recipes for s’more-flavored desserts, plus the fact that I had an aging bag of marshmallows in my pantry, I thought that combining marshmallows in dark chocolate brownies would be fantastic.  With that in mind, I set out to layer the two together and luckily ended up with some awesome results.

Using Pass the Sushi’s brownie recipe without the walnuts I scooped out a layer of brownie batter, then brought in the marshmallows.  My goal was to have 3 very distinct layers (brownie-marshmallow-brownie) so rather than cut the marshmallows in half and potentially decrease the height of their layer I decided to set them length-wise.  For the record, remember that the older your marshmallows are, the more difficult they are to pry apart.

Then I slathered on the rest of the batter and tossed it in the oven.  I was a little concerned at first; I didn’t increase the amount of batter in the recipe and had to do a little bit of pushing with my spatula to ensure all the marshmallows were covered.  Similar to my worries with the marshmallows, I was concerned my brownie layers would be the wrong height as well; I thought that maybe I should have increased the recipe some.

My worries continued when I pulled them out of the oven…and the marshmallows were trying to explode out from under the brownie and out of the pan!

I had no idea that the marshmallows would inflate like they did, though quick Google search or some basic forethought probably would’ve warned me of such a thing.  Regardless, it hadn’t occurred to me beforehand so I was a bit concerned at its lumpy appearance; it wasn’t exactly what I’d pictured in my head.

Luckily I had a towel: I didn’t panic.  After those bad boys cooled down (and after I munched on the edges to ensure they weren’t poisonous), I sealed them up and tossed them into the fridge.  Cold will solidify even the nastiest of gooey messes, right?

The following day I took them to Emily‘s to get glamor shots.  And what that really means is I went to her house, ate her food, and left them in her fridge so she could deal with them.  I’m such a good friend (hey – she did get free brownies).

That weekend I got to see the brownies again, and holy crap, had they been transformed!  Not only had they been in the fridge long enough to become edible without being permanently stuck to your fingers, but they’d also been displayed beautifully in adorable little triangles (did I just use the word adorable to describe something I ate?  Yes I did.  Insert baby eating joke here).

I am thrilled with the end product of these brownies.  My initial trepidations after pulling them out of the oven have been completely dispelled; they’ve turned out if not exactly how I’d pictured, at least just as good – maybe even better!  I love the beautiful contrast between the dark black of the chocolate and the white of the marshmallows; it’s incredibly attractive, a quality I think is important in food.  In terms of taste they came out chewy, sweet, and delicious.  The wonderful thing about the marshmallow center is that it actually made the brownies lighter.  Rather than having a dense chunk of pure brownie to chew through, the marshmallow breaks up the action and you don’t spend the next two hours pulling sticky brownie bits out of your teeth.  Which may be your thing…but even if it is I think you’ll like these brownies too.

The only downside to this recipe is that you have to trim off the bubbly edges in order to cut them into normal-looking brownies, and naturally that reduces the actual amount of final brownie you can put on a plate and feed your friends.  But if you don’t care about that type of thing, then you’re good to go.  I know that I ate an entire edge by myself…minus the tin foil. ^_^

Marshmallow Layer Brownie Recipe

Adapted from Pass the Sushi’s Cocoa Brownies with Browned Butter and Walnuts.

Ingredients:

• 10 tbsp butter
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 3/4 cups natural unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 plus 1 tbsp all purpose flour
• 2 tsp water
• 1/4 tsp salt (generous)
• 2 eggs
• 1 large bag of marshmallows

Instructions:

1. Brown the butter in a saucepan.
2. Remove from heat and immediately stir in sugar, cocoa, water, vanilla, and salt.
3. Let cool for ~5 minutes; mixture should still be warm.
4. Add eggs 1 at a time, completely blending in.
5. When mixture looks black and shiny, mix in flour, beating until completely blended.
6. Cover a 9×9 pan with tin foil, leaving ~2″ hanging edges.
7. Spoon half of the batter into the pan and spread to the edges.
8. Laying them length-wise, cover the brownie layer in a layer of marshmallows.
9. Spoon the rest of the batter on top of the marshmallow layer, and spread to the edges.
10. Bake at 325 degrees for 35 minutes.
11. Let cool in the pan on a cooling rack.
12. Seal in air-tight container and  refrigerate for a few hours or over night (they are infinitely easier to cut when chilled).
13. Lift tin foil and brownies from the pan and cut into desired number of brownies (I also opted to trim the edges off first, but that’s up to you).  Make sure you peel the tin foil off the bottom before consuming!

All pretty pictures by Emily.  All fugly pictures by me.