You know that family member who makes that one dish that’s always perfect? The thing everybody requests, season after season?

In my family, it was my grandmother, with her ooey-gooey Mississippi Mud cake. She’d make it for only very special occasions, and how did my family crow for it! A layer of thick chocolate cake covered with marshmallows, chocolate chips, walnuts, drenched in a divinity-sweet cocoa topping? Why, you’d’a crowed, too.

My grandmother, who we called Mawmaw, passed away last fall. To my knowledge she didn’t leave a recipe behind, but I think I came pretty close with these cookies.

Mawmaw’s Wide-as-the-Mississippi Mud Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
• 1/2 cup best-quality, fair-trade cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 generous tsp salt
• 1/2 cup vanilla or plain almondmilk (can use soy if you have nut allergies)
• 2 tablespoons ground flax seeds
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1/4 cup apple sauce
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon chocolate extract
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup Dandies mini marshmallows, plus extra for decorating
• Baking sheets with parchment paper
  • I used a greased Silpat, here, but that’s unnecessary unless you have one. I was simply out of parchment paper.

Directions

In a large mixing bowl or stand mixer, combine almond milk, flax seeds, canola oil, apple sauce, sugar, vanilla, and chocolate extract. Mix thoroughly until smooth.

In another bowl, sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Use a dry whisk to aerate the mixture after sifting.

Pour dry into wet and combine well.

Add chocolate chips, walnuts, and mini marshmallows. Stir well.

Drop big spoonfuls of cookies on the sheet, leaving an inch or two of space between them. They will spread! You’ll be able to get about six cookies on an 18″ x 13″ half sheet. Dot with additional marshmallows.

Bake a sheet at a time for 10 minutes at 350. Let cool on baking sheet, on rack, for a few minutes before removing to rack to complete cooling.

Kitchen notes

If you love to bake, I recommend leveling up in the following ways:

• Equipment. Head on over to a Restaurant Supply Store (or Webstaurant Store, if you don’t have one local) and buy:
  • 2 stainless steel 18″ x 13″ half sheet pans
  • 2 16″ x 24″ full size footed cooling racks
    • I’ve had mine for over a decade, used commercially as well as at home, and they still cook like I just got them.

• Ingredients.
  • The best-quality, fair-trade, organic cocoa powder you can find. One, because you don’t want to use chocolate produced by slave labor. And two, you can truly taste a difference. Real cocoa is deeper, cleaner, more purely chocolate. I’ll say more on this in another post, but yes, home bakers, I can always tell when you used Hershey’s.
  • Chocolate extract. My little secret for brownies, chocolate frosting, and the like is a half a teaspoon of chocolate extract, added along with the vanilla. You’ll be surprised at the flavor boost.