A comeback

Hi.

It's me again.

My corner of the globe celebrates Chinese New Year and I've been given a break from school which I've decided to use; to meet with old friends. And it has been so so good. The thing with catching up is that the conversation always ends up gravitating towards talk about the future. Maybe it's our subconscious selves trying to mentally-prepare ourselves for change, for what lies ahead. I'm not sure.

I've been thinking about the word "passion" again. Kind of tossing it around and taking nibbles of it here and there in my spare time. It's becoming clearer to me now. What I want.

I'm sorry that that sounds vague but this is all I can muster, at this point. I've hit a dry spell of some sort. Can't seem to wrap my head around anything. Can't seem to churn out anything cohesive. Or inspiring. But these marshmallow bars are the exact opposite of my current state. Anything lined with toasted marshmallows always translate to something good. Right?

This isn't my first encounter with toasted marshmallows and i can say with absolute certainty that this will not be the last. There's just something really satisfying about taking an ingredient and adding a new dimension to it. Not exactly scaling new heights here but right now, i'll take it as it is.

Recipe
(adapted from here and quite frankly- and it's really hard to say this without sounding self-deprecating- it's done so so much better over there. The recipe I'm posting is the much watered-down version but I think i prefer it this way. I implore you to put your own spin on it and see where it gets you.)

Ingredients:

- A sleeve of oreos (around 15-16 ish?)
- A tablespoon of melted butter
- A tablespoon of milk
- Marshmallows (the regular-sized variety)
- Chocolate (milk, dark, personal preference really!)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 F or 180 degrees and line a 9-inch square tin with parchment paper.

Crush the oreos. You can do this in a ziplock bag and beat the living daylights of the cookies or you can save yourself the hassle and use a food processor.

Place the crushed oreos into a bowl and add the melted butter and milk into it. Mix until the crumbs are coated and they can kind of come together.

Press these crumbs onto the base of a 9-inch square tin. Make sure the crumbs are as evenly distributed as possible so that the crust bakes evenly in the oven.

Bake for six minutes.

During this time, and maybe it'll be more prudent to do this before you start baking, cut the marshmallows in half. I do this with a small paring knife and it works well for me. Chop the chocolate or break them into smaller pieces. Remember you are going to scatter the chocolate over the crust so you have to estimate the amount of chocolate you'll be using based on that. I used 2 hershey milk chocolate bars and some chocolate chips to cover the base completely.

Remove the crust from the oven. Scatter the chocolate over the crust and wait. PATIENCE. Wait until the chocolate gets softer and spread it evenly over the crust but try to leave a little space around the edges. Place the marshmallows over the crust, sticky side down, until it is entirely covered with marshmallows.

Return the pan to the oven for four minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven and using a spoon, press the marshmallows down so that they kind of overlap. (This is kind of therapeutic so you're welcome.) This wasn't included in the recipe that I've linked above. It's something I learnt when I tried something with toasted marshmallows from Joy the Baker's new book.

Turn the oven setting to broiler setting and toast the marshmallows until they're brown AND BE VERY CAREFUL BECAUSE THEY BURN VERY EASILY.

Cut the into bars and serve!

They keep well in an air-tight container in room temperature for a couple of days.

ENJOY!