Rocky Road Cookies for Dean 1.08 Love, War, and Snow

“What is this? You hate rocky road cookies.” “I do not!” “Oh, I'm sorry. That must be my other daughter, Schmory.” “We're leaving now.” “Wait a minute. I know who likes rocky road cookies.” “Who?” “Dean. They're for Dean.” “She's bringing baked goods to a boy. Wow, serious!”

Rocky Road Cookies for the Dean and the Love

Ingredients:

• 1 stick of butter (½ cup)

• ⅓ cup brown sugar

• ⅓ cup granulated sugar

• 1 egg

• ⅓ cup cocoa powder

• ½ tsp vanilla

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp salt

• ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

• ⅓ cup chopped almonds, pecan, or walnuts, up to you

• ½ cup mini marshmallows (about 45)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Line baking sheet with silicone mat or parchment paper.

2. In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar.

3. Once light and fluffy, add in the egg, cocoa powder, and vanilla. Mix until fully incorporated.

4. Gradually add in the flour, baking powder, and salt, and mix until a dough is fully formed.

5. Fold in the chocolate chips and your nuts of choice.

6. Using a cookie scooper or your hands, form 1 ½ inch balls of dough and place on the lined baking sheet. Makes 22-24 cookies.

7. Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees. They should become a slightly darker color. Take the cookies out of the oven. If they have not flattened, carefully flatten the cookies with the back of a spatula.

8. Press a few mini marshmallows into each cookie while they are still hot. Then return the cookies to the oven to bake for an additional 1-2 minutes to allow the marshmallows to slightly melt into the cookies.

9. Allow cookies to cool before enjoying.

These rocky road cookies make the perfect Christmas Cookie

I truly don’t understand why Rory doesn’t like rocky road cookies because let me tell you, these are incredible! Even though I’ve only made 8 things for this blog so far, these have been my favorite. Dean is a lucky man if he’s getting these delivered to him on the regular. What is really great about these cookies is the ability to mix them up with the nut of your choice. I made one batch with pecans and one with walnuts, and while the pecans were slightly better, I did like that you can change just one ingredient and you get a different cookie experience. You could even mix up the marshmallows for chocolate ones if you’ve got Lorelai’s love of chocolate or add in a different type of chocolate chip. Maybe you even swap out the vanilla extract for some peppermint to give these cookies a festive flair.

Not going to lie, it's very tempting to eat this dough raw from the bowl

I love watching the episode right around Christmastime. Even though the actual Gilmore Girls Christmas episode isn’t for a couple more, I love the winteriness of this one. We get the iconic Lorelai quote, “I smell snow,” that has left fans opening their windows and inhaling the beautiful scent of the first snow of the year. I live in Texas, so unfortunately, I don’t get to smell snow very often, but I am just as in love with it as Lorelai. “The world changes when it snows. It gets quiet. Everything softens.” It just speaks to my soul.

I think it’s time we discuss Max Medina. To me, this is his best episode. He’s able to match Lorelai quip for quip, the snow adds an air of mystery to him, and he hasn’t reached his whiny stage yet (you have to admit he hits that stage eventually). I want to believe in Max and Lorelai as a couple. Maybe if they didn’t get engaged at the end of the first season, and we got to see their relationship grow over time, they might have lasted longer. But there’s something that’s just lacking in him that doesn’t make him right for Lorelai (although to be honest, I don’t really think there is a man out there that truly is...yes even, Luke). But in this episode, I do really love Max.

Something we also need to discuss is how bad of a friend Rory is. Here’s the thing, I know many of us thought that Rory became this horrible person after the original run of the show with the Netflix revival, some people thought she became a horrible person when she went off to college, some people blame her affair with Dean, some people blame Logan, but this episode tells us that Rory has kind of always been a bad person. I hate when friends get into relationships and their new significant other becomes their main focus and their friends take a backseat in their life. I’ve lost quite a few friends that way. Rory and Lane have been best friends since kindergarten, and Lane is already having to deal with her best friend going to a different school. Now Rory is going to abandon her when she starts dating Dean? In the words of Morey, uncool, very uncool. Lorelai is a better friend to Lane in this episode than Rory is. But I guess Rory is “talking Legos.”

I love my cookie dough scooper that makes the perfect ball

This week has been weird emotionally for me. Every year for the past seven years, I’ve held a Christmas party with my friends. I usually spend about a day and a half (sometimes even longer) cooking and baking. I spend the evening with my friends, eating, drinking, laughing, playing games, and in more recent years, singing Happy Birthday to my dog. I love almost everything about the holiday season, but my Christmas party is by far my favorite. Obviously, this year, things looked different. I still held my party this past Saturday, but it was over zoom. We played Jack Box games through screen share, we did a Secret Santa gift exchange through the mail, and we still got to sing to my dog. It was so good to see friends’ faces that I haven’t seen in so long, but I still felt weirdly sad the entire time.

I do know that I have been extremely privileged during this pandemic. I have been able to keep my job and work from home, and I have health insurance. I haven't known anyone personally that has died from covid. But it has been extremely frustrating to watch the majority of Americans go about their lives as though we are not in a global pandemic, as though over 300,000 Americans have not died. It seems so weird to be celebrating the holidays when there is so much to grieve right now. I’m not going to get on my covid soap box right now (I do that plenty on my personal instagram), but just sharing what has been on my mind as we go through this weird holiday season.

Putting the cookies back into the oven for a minute or lets the marshmallows melt into the cookie

To end this on a positive note, I will say, these rocky road cookies are so good for the holidays. I love dunking them in coffee spiked with Bailey’s, and they would pair very well with hot chocolate too. Are you baking more in quarantine? For me, baking has always been a good way to de-stress and I’ve been happy to have more time (and this blog) to do more of it. I’d love to hear how your holidays look this year.

Happy Cooking!

If you missed what I made last week, catch up here!