After all is said and done, this is officially the most TIME-CONSUMING thing that I've ever cooked in my entire life. First you have to make the graham crackers, which means chilling the graham cracker dough for a good hour at least. That's the "easy" part. Graham crackers are relatively simple to make.

Then you move onto the marshmallows. Not terribly hard to make, until... until you get to the part where you have to decorate the cookies. Getting the marshmallows in the piping bag, and then trying to keep it closed while squeezing out the marshmallow batter was... some of the messiest work I've ever done in the kitchen. Piping bags seem to be containers for releasing things out the back end no matter how hard you twist the bag closed. Plus, you have to work fast, because the marshmallows are already trying to set. Next time I'm using store-bought marshmallow fluff for ease of use.

After 5-6 hours of the marshmallows setting, you move onto the chocolate dip. This is where things were at their best, and also started to go off the rails a little. I used Trader Joe's dark chocolate by the pound, and after the first batch of cookies, I was down to about a 1/3 left. I wasn't quite cleaning off the excess chocolate as much as I should. So I improvised and added a bag of Hershey's Dark Chocolate chips. This created a problem that I've been unable to ascertain why. The chocolate dip started sliding off the marshmallows, and didn't quite stick nearly as good as the first batch. I don't know if it was simply because it was because the chocolate was of a higher temperature, or I was using inferior quality chocolate. But it's an easy fix, as I'll just buy more Trader Joe's dark chocolate, and regulate the melting temperatures lower next time. Oh yes, and freezing them for 10 minutes after you finish dipping them really locks in the chocolate.

 lei-lani went healthy with hers, using Splenda and other more natural ingredients. I went full-bore into Flavorville. Pure sugar, 60% dark chocolate, no skimping on this end! Diets be damned! And they are soooooo rich and decadent. They'll be much easier to make the second time around than the first. These are by far the most labor-intensive desserts ever. So... since you can't taste them, all you can do is have a look at mine, and a look at Lani's, and tell us which you think looks better. Then we'll compare, and see who wins! In the meantime... I'm gonna go have another cookie. Ciao!