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lucky charms guinness brownies

lucky charms guinness brownies

When my giant bag of Lucky Charms marshmallows (and just the marshmallows!) arrived, I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world.

But then I discovered that eating a bowl of marshmallows (and just the marshmallows) soaked in milk for breakfast did not make me feel good.

I also discovered that Lucky Charms marshmallows do not work in chocolate chip cookies.

Nor do they work with chocolate CHOCOLATE cookies.

Or blondies, for that matter.

Because it turns out when you add marshmallows to a dough, it just melts with everything else to leave ugly, colorful blotches in your baked goods. Oh, and it also adds even MORE sugar to the mix. And eating all that sugar leaves you feeling about as good as you would feel after eating a bowl of marshmallows and milk for breakfast.


But here's where Lucky Charms marshmallows do work:

In ice cream. On waffle cones. With chocolate. Specifically, deep, dark, and almost bitter chocolate. The kind of chocolate whose richness is enhanced by a dry yet creamy stout beer like Guinness.

And that's how these Lucky Charm Guinness Brownies were born.


This recipe is a St. Patrick's Day ode to Rocky Road brownies. I've swapped out a traditional brownie base for one that's spiked with Guinness to give it a little bit of a boozy kick and keep things as moist and flavorful as possible. The brownies are then topped with heaping portions of hazelnuts, mini chocolate chips, and of course, Lucky Charms marshmallows. The marshmallows are added during the last stage of the baking process to allow them crisp up beautifully in the oven and give the brownies a gooey, sticky layer and make it feel like you're eating a boozy s'more.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!


Some baker's notes:

• There is no need to buy a family sized box of Lucky Charms cereal, dump them all out on to the kitchen counter, and spend an episode or two of House of Cards sorting out the marshmallows from the boring pieces. Amazon sells bags of just the marshmallows for a little bit of a steep price ($10 a bag, yeugh). They won't be the same colors or the same shapes as the original, but they'll do just fine.


• It's important here to follow the ingredients list to a tee and use 100% cacao, unsweetened dark chocolate — that is literally uber dark chocolate with no sugar added to it AT ALL. The Lucky Charms marshmallows add so much sweetness to the whole brownie that using regular sweetened chocolate (even if it's 70%-cacao plus) will just be too much! But that might be your jam. Just don't say I didn't warn you.


• Most brownies have you wait until they're cool completely to slice them (otherwise they get too crumbly/stay too moist and fall apart completely). Not with this recipe — this recipe is best when the brownie base is still slightly warm, and the marshmallows are still sticky from being in the oven. Use a serrated knife dipped in warm water to slice the brownies, making sure to wipe the knife off each time you slice. The marshmallows will dry out and fall off the brownies as they cool, so it's best to slice and eat them while they're fresh and warm from the oven. But if you can't eat a whole pan in one sitting (ehem, I can't either, ehem), you can always microwave a slice for a few seconds to get that s'mores effect.

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