These Chocolate Marshmallow Radio Bars feature a chocolate cake base topped with a scoop of marshmallow buttercream…oh yeah, and then they’re covered in a chocolate glaze!
To the best of my knowledge, radio bars are a uniquely upstate New York thing. More specifically, they’re a uniquely capital region of upstate New York thing. More specifically, they’re a unique creation of one of the bakeries here in town. Googling ‘radio bars’ only comes back with a sparse handful of results. When was the last time you googled anything and came back with only a few hits? I thought Google was broken. Nope, it just turns out that radio bars aren’t as widespread as I thought.
So what is a radio bar? Radio bars are pieces of chocolate cake topped with a spoonful (a ‘blop’ if you would) of frosting and then covered in a chocolate glaze. I have no idea why they’re called radio bars. I was thinking maybe they look like those old-timey radios? But they really don’t. So who knows how they got the name…and who cares! All I know is they are delicious. I can assure you with 100% certainty that these Chocolate Marshmallow Radio Bars will be a new favorite!
I was first introduced to radio bars when I was working at a local bakery right after we moved up here. I’d taken a couple of professional baking classes at the local culinary school, and I decided it might be fun to open a bakery of my own. I got a job working at a small ‘mom-and-pop’ bakery, and I’m glad I did…I quickly realized that I didn’t want to run my own bakery. The quality of this particular bakery was downright bad. Gordon Ramsay would’ve had a field day with this place! But the one good thing that came out of those few months of being a semi-professional baker? Radio bars. (For the record, this bakery is not the original creator of the radio bar. And this bakery is now thankfully out of business.)
“I hate you.” Those were the words uttered by Angie after just one bite of these Chocolate Marshmallow Radio Bars. We’re always careful with what we eat around here, and I had packed up these radio bars to send to her breakroom at work the next day. But there was that one radio bar with a bite out of it, and I saved that one back for us. Laura was right (as always often.) I hated myself for wrapping up all of those radio bars. Then again, I’m pretty sure her coworkers were quite pleased to walk into the break room and find a tray of these Chocolate Marshmallow Radio Bars!
Full disclosure: these bars are a bit of a process to make. They’re not difficult by any means. They just require a number of steps. And after each step, it’s important to refrigerate (or ideally freeze) the bars so that the pourable frosting doesn’t turn the bars into an ooey, gooey mess. Although, let’s be honest, I’d be ok with an ooey, gooey mess of radio bars. Just hand me a fork, and I’ll clean up that problem! But if you actually want to serve these bars to family or friends, then I do highly recommend taking the time to refrigerate/freeze the bars in between each step. The result is worth it. Trust me!
I hope you enjoy these Chocolate Marshmallow Radio Bars as much as we did! They’re delicious, and I’m definitely filing this recipe away for when I need to take a fun dessert somewhere. If you make this dessert, make sure to swing back by and leave a comment! Happy baking, my friends!
These Chocolate Marshmallow Radio Bars feature a chocolate cake base topped with a scoop of marshmallow buttercream…oh yeah, and then they’re covered in a chocolate glaze!
Prep Time:15 minutes
Cook Time:40 minutes
Total Time: 55 minutes
Servings: 12 squares
Calories: 931kcal
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