It was my turn to come up with a challenge for the Home Baker’s Collective. Nabisco made these cookies when I was a kid.  We would go to Food Town on Bloomfield Avenue in Caldwell, NJ and buy a few boxes of them.  Inevitably we would crack open a box on the car ride home and each of us would get our own cardboard box full of these delicious marshmallow treats.  I mixed a few recipes and even modified the Serious Eat’s pop tart recipe to try to get the cookie right.  It is still not there. But oh, so close. If anyone out there remembers these cookies and has a better idea for the cookie part, please let me know.

INGREDIENTS

Cookies

113 g cold cubed butter
110 g all-purpose flour
30 g whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
85 g corn syrup
45 g honey

Marshmallow Filling

4 teaspoons gelatin
1/2 cup water, divided
1/2 cup light corn syrup, divided
9 ounces granulated sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Assembly

½ cup Apricot Jam
2 tablespoons water

DIRECTIONS

Cookies
With your fingers, cut butter into flour, along with salt, until reduced to pea sized lumps. Next, add corn syrup and honey all at once and mix with a fork until it forms a ball. Dust your hands with a little flour, scoop out the dough, and knead lightly until smooth.

Flatten dough into a squarish shape, wrap in plastic, and chill at least 30 minutes. Or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove dough from refrigerator and let it warm up just a bit.  Roll to 1/8” thick. Use a round cookie cutter to make circles and place them on parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake for approximately 10 minutes until just turning color.  You don’t want to brown them.

Remove from sheet and let cool. While you make the marshmallow.

Marshmallow
Bloom gelatin by placing 1/4 cup water in small bowl and sprinkle gelatin over top. Let sit at least 5 minutes to soften.

Place 1/4 cup corn syrup in standing mixer bowl. Place remaining 1/4 cup corn syrup remaining 1/4 cup water, and sugar in medium saucepan over medium-high heat until dissolved. Continue to cook, without stirring, until mixture reaches 240 degrees F (use a thermometer).  Immediately pour hot syrup down side of mixer bowl and add softened gelatin and vanilla.  Turn mixer to medium speed and beat until combined, about 1 minute. Increase speed to medium high and beat until light and fluffy, about 7-8 minutes.

Assembly
Add water to apricot jam to pot and heat until it thins out.  Spread thin layer on each cookie half.  Line them up and pipe marshmallow filling on one half and then place 2^nd cookie on top.  Do not push down. Gravity will do the work.  Let them dry out on some parchment for a couple hours.