Saturday, April 17, 2010

S'Mores Cookies

Last fall, I spent a few weeks in North Dakota administering reading tests to kids on the reservations there. North Dakota was a pleasant surprise for me - not at all how I had pictured it. It was beautiful - lots of rolling hills, wide open skies, little towns with old churches in the center, and lots of beautiful farmland. I loved the acres and acres of sunflower fields (who wouldn't?) and the wheat fields broken up every couple of hundred feet by tall rows of trees planted as a windbreak by the pioneer settlers. Loved it. I hope I get to go back someday. I'm pretty sure I could live there quite happily.

At one of the schools we visited, the reading coach had made some S'Mores Cookies and shared them with us. They were sooooo good. Her family owns a large organic flax farm and she had put flax in them, so when I made my own version, I included it as an ingredient. I tried a few recipes for these cookies that I found online, but they didn't work very good - I think maybe because of the altitude where I live. I got a little frustrated last fall and gave up, but I was thinking about them this week and gave it another try. So this is what I came up with and it worked really good this time:


S'Mores Cookies

1 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs, coarsely chopped (you want big chunks in there)
1/2 cup milled flax
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups chocolate chips
about 1 cup miniature marshmallows
1 large Hershey bar, chopped in pieces

Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla and mix together. Sift flour, graham cracker crumbs, flax, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl and slowly add to creamed mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for about 7-8 minutes. Remove from oven and quickly place 3 -4 pieces of chocolate bar and 3-4 marshmallows into each cookie. Return to the oven and cook another 3-4 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.