chocolate raspberry horse turds

Yup, you read that right: horse turds.

I was looking through a binder of my great-aunt’s recipes and came across this one from her sister, my late grandmother.

How could I resist?

Especially since it’s summer, it’s awfully hot in our little flat, and this dessert doesn’t require baking.

Ah, those words are like music to my ears. I have been longing to bake cookies for weeks, but the temperature has prevented me. Now, I can make do with horse turds.

I made a few changes, because this dessert comes from a time when it was not only acceptable to name a dessert horse turds, but also when most desserts included canned fruit and graham cracker crumbs. I have a certain bias against graham cracker crumbs and there is far too much fresh fruit to use canned right now.

May I present chocolate raspberry horse turds for your next dinner party? (Which will be slightly less sweltering because you didn’t turn on the oven to make this dessert.)

The brilliant thing about this recipe is that you can do almost anything you want with it. Use graham cracker crumbs if you like them. Use whatever fruit you feel like. Make a new kind of horse turd. If you do experiment, will you tell me what you did? I can envision a whole dessert tray of different kinds of horse turds . . .

And if you don’t feel it proper to call these horse turds with your polite company, what will you call them? In case I ever entertain royalty, it would be good to have another naming option.

A note: You can use either regular or gluten-free chocolate cookies. I used these because I am addicted to their salty, dark chocolate flavour.

chocolate raspberry horse turds

makes 12 horse turds

1 c. whipping cream

1/2 tsp. vanilla

2 tsp. sugar

12 marshmallows, cut into small pieces

1/2 c. raspberries or other fruit

3/4 c. chocolate cookie crumbs (about 1 1/3 c. before they’re crumbled)

Start whipping the cream. As it thickens, add the vanilla and sugar. Whip until it is as stiff as whip cream gets.

Use a bit of whip cream to coat your fingertips, and pull apart the marshmallow pieces. Throw them in and stir to coat them as you try to keep them relatively separate. Refrigerate for one hour.

In the meantime, wash and pat your raspberries dry. Put them in the fridge to stay cool, too.

Grind your cookie crumbs in a food processor, if necessary. (If you don’t have a food processor, put them in a plastic baggie and mash them with the heels of your hands.)

Prepare a cookie sheet with parchment paper or wax paper.

Once the whip cream and marshmallow mixture has been in the fridge for an hour, take it out and carefully fold in the raspberries.

Plop spoonfuls onto your prepared cookie sheet. Use another spoon to liberally sprinkle cookie crumbs over their tops. Refrigerate for 3 hours.

Use a spatula to lift each horse turd onto a plate. Eat with a spoon or dessert fork. Stay cool.