No Pain, No Gain

I'll bet you're guessing that this title has to do with exercising.

You'd be wrong.

In fact, it has to do with the fact that what appears to be a fiddly, overly-complicated recipe is actually worth the time and effort.

Today, this month's Family Fun magazine showed up at my door. A friend was visiting, and we paged through it. She noted that "Chocolate Surprise Cookies" sounded good, so I said...let's bake! This was before reading the recipe, which was too bad, since she didn't actually get to taste the final product (too many steps taking too much time before she had to leave.)

It was really too bad.

Because these were totally worth all the steps.

I can't find the Family Fun version of the recipe anywhere online, but I see that Nosh With Me has a similar one posted on her website. Here's the one that I made, adapted from the Family Fun magazine:

Chocolate Surprise Cookies
Makes 20 - which is actually accurate

2 cups flour
1 cup cocoa powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup milk (I used the 1% that we have in the house. The recipe called for whole milk. I can't imagine how it could matter.)
2 tsp vanilla extract
10 marshmallows, cut in half

Heat oven to 350. Sift together the flour, cocoa, salt, cinnamon, and baking powder. Set aside.

Using a mixer on medium high speed, cream the butter and sugar for about 3 minutes. Add egg and beat for another minute. Combine milk and vanilla. Turn the mixer to low and add half the milk. Then slowly add half the flour mixture, then the remaining milk mixture, and then the remaining flour. Mix until well-blended.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment. Scoop out 2-tablespoon size balls, drop them onto the sheet. I did about 6 per sheet, leaving about 3 inches between them. They don't spread much. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, top each one with half a marshmallow, cut side down, pressing it into the dough. Bake for an additional 4 minutes, then cool on a rack.

See what I mean? Not so much spreading. Could have fit more on the sheet, I guess.

Then make icing:
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup sour cream (I used reduced fat, because that's what I had)

Whisk together the sugar and cocoa powder, then stir in the sour cream until smooth. It seems like it won't work, but it does, trust me. Then top the cookies with the icing so the marshmallow is totally covered. Set for about 1 hour and then eat. With a huge glass of milk.

It makes a ton of icing but trust me, you'll want all the icing. The cookies are not really worth eating without the icing.

  

 Delicious!

 I'm now glad that we made them, but in the middle I was wishing I had read the recipe more carefully before deciding so quickly to make them! I have a feeling they're going to be requested again soon by my children.... What's your favorite fiddly-but-worth-it recipe?