How to Make Moon Pies

growing up my grandparents always went south so come Fat Tuesday time they would ship us boxes of moon pies and beads and this time we decided to do a Mardi Gras story so I could not wait to start making moon pies to start you need graham crackers so i take about ten graham crackers just to make sure you have enough crumbs you're looking for one and a half cups of graham cracker crumbs to start so what you're looking for the really fine crumb you don't want anything any chunks or big pieces because that'll mess up your cookie so this is the texture you're looking for pretty fine crumb almost like a flower now that we have our graham cracker crumbs we can get started on our graham cracker cookie so what we do is we're gonna take one and a half cups graham cracker crumbs and I already have one and a quarter cups flour measured out we're gonna combine all our dry ingredients into one bowl and whisk them together

next we're going to add a teaspoon each of salt kosher salt

and baking powder and our secret ingredients cinnamon just a half deep

and just whisk them all together like you would a cookie I'm ready to be added to our creamed mixture now we're going to cream our butter 12 tablespoons that is softened brown sugar quarter cup packed of course and our other secret ingredient Lyle's golden syrup so a little tip about this it's a sticky ingredient so we like to use our friend pan then also when you're measuring syrup or any liquid measuring you want to get eye level if I didn't mention its quarter cup give you one little push we're gonna turn this on and mix until it's combined

scrape down the sides everyone smile

okay now that we have our creamed ingredients we're gonna add our dry ingredients

so we're gonna mix until it combined and then we're gonna stir in some milk and vanilla for an add a half a teaspoon vanilla and two tablespoons milk this will help our dough come together make sure this is on low because we don't want the milk splattering

okay now that we have our dough together we're going to divide this in half wrap it in plastic wrap to form kind of like a round disc to make it easier to roll out later I have already gone ahead and started one dough I'm going to show you this dough is a little soft so I make two rounds of dough it makes it easier to roll out and to get some thin cookies which we're looking for refrigerating the dough is key because it will get the temperature just right for rolling when you're pressing the dough go ahead and make it thing you're going to eventually roll this dough out to an eighth of an inch so the more help the better now into the refrigerator they go I have pulled out one of our chilled dough that we're now going to roll to 1/8 inch thick one of the things that we like to do in the Test Kitchen is use little dowels if it starts to get too warm and not quite as easy to work with pop it back in the fridge and that's a great thing about rolling it out on parchment it makes it easier to pop in and out of the fridge to reach ill or eww knees if you did chill this overnight let it sit out just a hair because it'll make rolling it out a little smoother I kind of turn it once in a while I'd leave the dowels where they're at because at this stage you're not worried about getting too thin in the center is what I'm kind of just kind of working it up you can cut out quite a bit

you know you're at the right thickness when you can tell about your rolling prin is rolling without any resistance I can see here there is no more give or rolling right on the dowel let's get to cutting

we're using a two and a half inch round cutter this kind of keeps them a nice shape because they will spread a little one they cook

you can re-roll this crap once though because too many times and I'll get a little tough once you feel that the dough is kind of sticking to the cutter don't even worry about pulling the cookies off yet just pop it in the freezer let them set up again and then you'll be good to go one thing I like to use when taking off these cookies off the parchment is just a little flat spatula it just gets under there nicely to make sure as it lifts away from the parchment and if you have some little stragglers on there just kind of brush them off a little make sure to space them about two inches apart onto a parchment lined baking sheet that way the hub room does spread it'll make it easier once they're cooling to just transfer it all to the cooling rack so you're gonna bake these at 350 for about 10 minutes until the undersides are golden brown and the tops are set now we have our cookies cooling they look beautiful we can get started on our marshmallow filling to get the marshmallow filling started you take a quarter cup cold water so I just took tap water let some ice cube sit in there to get nice and cold and then we're going to sprinkle a packet of gelatin over the cold water in the mixer that will allow the gelatin to bloom while we get started on eating the sugars

next we're gonna combine in a small saucepan fitted with a candy thermometer 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup corn syrup atha teaspoon of salt and a quarter cup of tap water so it does not have to be cold and we're going to turn on over medium heat no need to stir these ingredients together once it starts simmering they all start to blend together once it reaches 240 degrees we're going to transfer it over to the mixer with our gelatin we're gonna have the mixer running on low and we're gonna get our marshmallow gun but we have reached 240 we will shut the temple off remove it and now with the mixer on low we're gonna slowly drizzle this in being careful not to spill it now that we have all that syrup added we're going to increase the speed and get this whisk in for about 6 minutes

okay now that the marshmallow is peein first six minutes we're good to go so since marshmallow sets quickly the best way to fill our cookies is to pipe it you're going to pipe about two tablespoons filling on the cookies one of our favorite tips here in the Test Kitchen is to put a piping bag with fitted with a tip into a glass jar to help kind of hold it up in make it easier to fill so when you're holding in your hand it's not going everywhere I never said you wouldn't get sticky all right let me go get the cookies I have gone ahead and flipped over half of our cooled cookies this is a side that you're gonna pipe the marshmallow cream on to

just keep it into the center because once you press the top cookie on it'll all come out to the edges move the cookies around make sure they're oh if you're feeling like you're getting marshmallow too close to one side pick up the little little on the top and give it a twist and just kind of push it around a little better now after you have assembled them all they're gonna go into the refrigerator to set for about 15 minutes but what I have going on here is a pound of semi-sweet chocolate we're making our own double boiler this makes melting chocolate a lot easier I find that if you do in the microwave it tends to seize up or moonpies you want it to be smooth I use a bread knife it just really chop through that chocolate nicely and makes for an easier melting process starting to melt it does take some time but you don't want to rush it because that too can make it cease

get it's all melting and it's ready to go but one key thing let it cool slightly because this bowl is high since it's been melting the chocolate I'll go grab our Moon Pies alright now we have our Moon Pies our melted chocolate and here comes the fun part we're coating them so you're gonna take it and put it right in there our little friends two forks give them a nice little chocolate bass make sure it's all coated around the sides tap off some of that excess right back on the parchment because when you're done you're gonna pop these back in the refrigerator to get that chocolate to set but don't forget you can add a little fun sprinkles to them since it is for Mardi Gras give them a little flair now you're gonna pop them into the fridge let them set that chocolate and then you can enjoy I hope I showed you how easy these are to make they do just take some some time but they really come together nicely and they are way better than the store-bought so I hope you enjoy