Snow Day Provisions

I tend to feel that certain things are best marked with celebratory snacks. Snow days are definitely one of them. I don't know about you but to me snow days mean cocoa. Today while I was making the requisite cup, I started eyeing my mini marshmallows. Adorable, fluffy, cottony little bits of sweetness, they were calling out for something bigger and better than a slow melting demise on top of the cocoa. And so, rocky road cookies.

But here's the rub. I got a new silpat for Christmas and so I was able to rotate pans while baking. I baked half the cookies on my old mat and an old black standard lipped cookie pan. I baked half the cookies on my new mat on a shiny flat silvery cookie sheet. They turned out totally different. The ones on the old mat and pan were fat and plump (as well they should be, little mounds of chocolatey, nutty, marshmallowy goodness). The ones on the new mat and sheet were spread very wide and flat (still tasty but more regular chocolate between bites). What the heck happened? Clearly something mat/sheet related right? All cookies were baked for the same amount of time. They were alternated in the oven, so it wasn't like the plump ones baked up first or anything. Where the frick is Alton Brown when I need some food science answers. Probably off eating his own, non-tempermental rocky road cookies. Bastard.

ROCKY ROAD COOKIES
This recipe probably needs a bit of tinkering with given its tempermental nature. I'm thinking of cutting back on butter and sugar next time, so feel free to try doing that yourself. Less butter because I'm blaming it for the over spread, less sugar because when you're adding chocolate and marshmallows you don't need the base to be as sweet.

INGREDIENTS:
2 C flour
3/4 C cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 t salt
2.5 sticks unsalted butter
2 eggs
2 C sugar
3/4 C chopped pecans
3/4 C mini marshmallows - halved if you can stand it, full size they stick more and compromise the structural integrity of the cookie a bit
3/4 C chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 350 F. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time. Mix well. Add the vanilla. Sift together the dry ingredients. Add slowly, a cup or so at a time, mixing in between additions.
Add the pecans, marshmallows and chocolate chips and stir gently but thoroughly so the mix-ins are evenly distributed. Using an old black cookie sheet and your old silpat mat, put heaping tablespoons of batter on the sheet (I may have rolled mine, I'm weird like that). Leave some room for them to spread, a lot if you fear they'll bizarrely flatten like mine. Bake for 7-9 minutes, no more than 9 though. Leave to cool 5 minutes on the pan before removing to a wire rack. Try any sooner and you'll have serious cookie carnage.