Experiment: Dessert Calzones

Well, since there was so much interest in these I figured I should post about them next. Before we even get started though, I want to make one point: more experiments are clearly needed. While delicious, these things were a disaster. What I had envisioned were two-bite size calzones, full of sweet goodiness, easy to eat with your hands. What I got were sticky, exploded, two-bite size calzones and you needed to take a shower after eating them. They were tasty though. Details? Sure.

I made four different kinds, peanut butter and strawberry jam, peanut butter and chocolate and the same again but with marshmallow. I made them just like a regular calzone, only much smaller. Maybe three inches by five or so. I dolloped the peanut butter on and then the jam or chocolate and then, if it was getting it, half a large marshmallow. Then I sealed them up, with varying amounts of visual appeal. Brushed them with melted butter and sprinkled them with sugar. Then I baked them like regular calzones, 500 degrees on parchment (if they explode it doesn't get all over your stone). This is what the ones without marshmallow looked like. Sort of, sorry about the pic. I'm sure most of you see at least one problem here. The vent I cut in one of them was way too huge. This was part of my explosion issue. But even the one with smaller vents exploded. What is needed is something to hold up the dough so the filling doesn't ooze out. As you can see in this cross-section, the marshmallow did just this. and the chocolate and peanut butter stayed in. But the marshmallow itself oozed out and completely disappeared. I was thinking maybe chunks of brownie or some other dense cake would work, with some caramel and hot fudge in there. Or maybe nuts. Or even a whole strawberry or chunks of apple. I did make a calzone once that had apple pie filling in it, that worked out well. But like I said, more experiments. Any ideas, kids?

One pleasant surprise: the filling that oozed out turned into a crispy caramel/toffee kind of thing that was quite good.Who'd have guessed?