Welcome back for another edition of A Taste of Transcona! I decided to make this recipe as I had a dinner party to go to and needed to bring a dessert. I had everything except margarine and marshmallows on hand, so it was a quick trip to the store for me.
The recipe for this one was pretty simple; cream the margarine and sugar together, add eggs and mix well. Then I added the flour and cocoa powder and finished it off with the walnuts. I then put the batter in a greased pan and baked at 350 degrees for 25 mins.
After I pulled the brownies from the oven I poured mini marshmallows all over the top and placed the brownies back in the oven and under the broiler. I had been warned that if you don't watch the marshmallows, they can quickly go up in flames. The light on my oven is broken, so I had to open the door to check on them. I put them under the broiler for 2 mins, then for another 20 seconds and that was enough. (Note: for the first 2 minutes I turned my oven to broil and put the brownies in at the same time. So it took my broiler close to 2 minutes to really warm-up. It may not take as long to get your marshmallows golden. )
Now, this is the part of the recipe that tripped me up. The final directions were to make a soft chocolate icing and spread it all over the marshmallow-topped brownies. I didn't have the full copy of the 1964 cookbook with me while I was baking this, I only had a picture of the recipe. There was a recipe for chocolate buttercream in the 1964 cookbook, but I didn't have access to it, so I made this last step harder for myself. The original recipe called for 1 tbsp of butter, but no butter in the brownies. After I made this I realized that was for greasing the pan, but I used the baking pan that I had on hand. I had to use the butter, so I made buttercream using one tablespoon of butter in the ingredient listing. After a quick check of the instructions on how to make the icing on the back of the icing sugar bag, and some fractions work, I made buttercream with the butter, icing sugar and cocoa powder. I placed my tiny amount in a small Ziploc bag and drizzled it over the brownies.
The final result - these were awesome. Not too sweet, nice and chewy - all in all I would make these again. Next time I may even make a graham cracker bottom/crust with the brownies on top, basically, it would be like s'mores in a pan.
Marshmallow Brownie Squares
1/2 cup margarine
1 tbsp. butter
1 cup white sugar
5 tbsp. coca
2 eggs beaten
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
Cream margarine and sugar. Add beaten eggs, mix well. Gradually add cocoa and flour, then add nuts all at once. Bake in a 9x9 greased pan at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.
TOPPING- remove cake from oven when it is baked. Spread miniature marshmallows over whole surface. Return to oven, put on "broil" element and heat just until marshmallows are golden. Remove from oven. Allow cake to cool 20 minutes or until marshmallow topping feels firm. Meanwhile make soft chocolate butter icing using a little more liquid than for ordinary butter icing. Spread icing over marshmallow topping. Watch the cake disappear.
Mrs. Lucille Sosiak.