Marshmallow Fudge Bars
A thin layer of cakey brownies topped with marshmallows and a smooth fudge icing.
Servings 24 bars
Cost 5
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons unsalted or salted butter (114 grams)
- ¾ cup sugar (125 grams)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- ⅔ cup all purpose flour (90 grams)
- 2 tablespoons cocoa powder, Dutch process (12 grams)
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup chopped pecans
- 24 large large marshmallows snipped in half
Frosting
- ½ cup packed light or dark brown sugar
- 3 oz unsweetened chocolate chopped
- ¼ cup hot water (56 grams)
- 4 tablespoons unsalted or salted butter, cut into chunks (56 grams)
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
- 1 ½ cups powdered sugar, sift after measuring (180 grams)
- 2-3 tablespoons room temperature heavy cream (28 grams or more)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line inside of a 9x13 inch metal pan with parchment paper. Alternatively, you can use foil and grease it.
- Beat the butter until with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add ¼ cup of the sugar and beat for 30 minutes. Gradually add remaining ½ cup sugar and beat for 3 or 4 minutes or until very light, scraping sides of bowl often. Beat in the vanilla, then beat in the eggs, one at a time.
- Thoroughly mix together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. By hand (no mixer, that is), gradually add the flour mixture to the batter, stirring until incorporated. Stir in the pecans. Drop spoonfuls of the batter all over the bottom of the foil-lined pan, then gently smooth them together with a spoon so that you have a very thin layer of batter covering the pan.
- Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick just barely comes out clean. Arrange marshmallow halves across top, cut side down, fitting them in the best you can. Return to oven and bake for 3 minutes. Pull from oven and let cool completely.
- Make frosting (you can start this before the bars are completely cool because the frosting requires some cooling as well).
- Combine the sugar, chocolate and hot water in a saucepan and bring to a gentle boil over medium heat or whatever heat you need to get to a gentle boil.
- When mixture starts to boil, stir constantly for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and add the butter. Stir until butter melts, then add the vanilla. Let cool to room temperature. When cool, beat in the powdered sugar. At this point the icing will appear grainy and possibly ruined. It’s not! Beat in the heavy whipping cream one tablespoon at a time until the icing becomes glossy and fairly pourable.
- Spread evenly over the marshmallows, tilt pan to spread, then use a spoon to completely spread across marshmallows.
- Let set – this should take about an hour. Lift foil from pan, set on a cutting board, cut into squares or bars.
Notes
Note: I let my chocolate mixture cool a little, but I got impatient and beat in the powdered sugar while it was still warm. The icing looked good, but was still warm when I put it on the marshmallows and as a result, they melted and lost some volume.