s’mores

S’more Rice Krispie Treats

July 5, 2018

There are so many recipes that I make at home that never make it to the blog. Some I photograph, but the finished product just doesn’t look or taste right.

Others I make, but never photograph, only having to make them again.

This was almost one of those recipes.

After the weather threatened our chances at making actual s’mores for our 4th of July cookout, I thought I would try something a little different. A total experiment. S’more Rice Krispie Treats!

However, after I made these and served them to my husband and neighbors, it was determined that they HAD TO GO ON THE BLOG.

My very picky husband literally called these S’more Rice Krispie Treats “amazing”.

So here they are, on the blog….with almost no photos. Don’t worry, though. They are very easy to make and require very little visual guidance.

How to Make Them.

First, lay down a layer of graham crackers. My square baking dish didn’t fit them perfectly, so I had to break a few in half to get the entire bottom of the pan covered in graham crackers.

Then, pour melted chocolate over the graham crackers and carefully spread it out so that there is a nice thin layer of chocolate over the crackers.

Now it’s time to make the Rice Krispie treats! Follow the directions on the box or make your very own version of the classic and then dump the Rice Krispie mix on top of the chocolate covered crackers. Use a spatula to press the Rice Krispies down into the chocolate so that the entire pan is full.

Then do everything in reverse! Melt some more chocolate, pour and spread it on top of the Rice Krispie treats, then top with more graham crackers.

Let the entire thing sit and harden for about 30 minutes or until the chocolate has hardened.

Finally, cut them into squares. You can use the top graham crackers as a guide, but they may not line up perfectly with the bottom grahams.

See, so easy right?

Recipe

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Peanut Butter and Jelly S’mores

August 18, 2017

You all know I love peanut butter and jelly. So I wouldn’t be fooling anyone if I told you I just happened to come up with the pb&j s’mores on a whim. You guys know better. I knew exactly what I was going to do with my homemade graham crackers and marshmallows before I made them.

It’s really the only reason I made peanut butter marshmallows.

Actually, what inspired these s’mores were these raspberry filled Ghirardelli chocolate squares. They have a little Instagram contest going on to see who can use their chocolate squares in a s’more in the best/most unique way. I have seen a lot of other bloggers use their caramel filled squares, so I wanted to do something different. I spotted the raspberry squares at the store and I knew exactly what would go perfectly with them! Peanut butter!

But to be clear, this is in no way sponsored by Ghirardelli. This is just me throwing my s’mores into the proverbial hat (a.k.a the Instagram contest).

Also to be clear, you absolutely do not have to use these Ghirardelli raspberry chocolate squares to have a kick-a pb&j s’mores.

You also do not need homemade graham crackers or peanut butter marshmallows. But they do help!

Start by slathering on a generous layer of peanut butter onto one graham cracker. Then roast up your marshmallow (preferably your homemade marshmallow) the best way you know how. If you have an open fire available, have at it! I, personally, like to use my handy dandy kitchen torch.

Once the marshmallow is toasty on all sides, place it on top of your peanut butter.

Top the marshmallow with your chocolate, then spread some raspberry jam (or jam of choice) on your other graham cracker.

It’s like the best thing ever. How could it not be? Combining two childhood favorites the s’mores and the pb&j.

I made the mistake of making these before dinner so I could take pictures. Then I promptly ate both of them (or most of both of them) completely ruining my dinner.

Worth. It.

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Homemade Marshmallows (Four Ways!)

August 16, 2017

Making marshmallows is a bit like a conducting science experiment. At least that’s what my husband said when we made a batch together over the weekend. He was a bit astonished that we took powdered gelatin, mixed it with some water to make a very thick gel. Then mixed that at high speed with some hot liquefied sugar and somehow we created marshmallows. Something that doesn’t resemble either of the two main ingredients at all.

It is kind of astonishing, isn’t it?

While it may seem more like a science experiment than baking, making marshmallows at home is a ton of fun! It would be a really fun thing to make with kids (with adult supervision of course because it does involve boiling sugar). Just be prepared for the stickiness. I still have marshmallow finger prints in random places around my kitchen.

Marshmallows require only a few simple ingredients: gelatin (plain), corn syrup, and sugar. That’s it. Of course, you can add in flavorings like vanilla….or….

You can really step things up and make peanut butter, chocolate, and strawberry marshmallows like I did.

I knew that I wanted to make some different flavored marshmallows, not just plain old vanilla ones, and fortunately, I didn’t have to look far for my inspiration. I used peanut butter powder and cocoa powder to flavor the marshmallow mix peanut butter and chocolate flavored. Then I used freeze dried strawberries, that I ground up into a powder to mix it in the same way as the other powders.

But I am getting a little ahead of myself…

Start by blooming your gelatin with half of the water in a bowl or measuring cup. I recommend doing this in a separate bowl or cup (unlike what I did in my first batch), because some of the gelatin may stick to the bottom of the bowl and will never get fully incorporated into the rest of the marshmallow.

Meanwhile, what the gelatin is blooming away, bring the sugar, corn syrup, and water to a boil. A candy thermometer will come in really handy right about now because you want your mixture to come to 240 degrees.

With your mixer on low speed, drizzle the sugar mixture into the bowl with the gelatin. After everything is poured in, turn the speed up to high and get the party started!

After about ten to fifteen minutes the mixture should look a lot like a stiff meringue, except a lot stickier! The mixture should be thick, but still very light and airy.

If you are flavoring your marshmallows with anything, now is the time to add that in. I added a couple tablespoons of peanut butter powder and mixed it into my marshmallow mix. I did the same with the cocoa powder and strawberry powder.

Forming the marshmallows may be the trickiest part of this whole process because the marshmallow is just so stubborn. It does not want to go where you want it to go, and it sticks to everything. I found that using a couple of well-oiled hands or an offset spatula works the best for spreading it out on to the pan.

Note that my pan is heavily dusted with powdered sugar. There is actually a layer of parchment under there, too, to make sure that nothing sticks!

Also, since I made several flavors, I sectioned off my pan with a piece of parchment so that the flavors wouldn’t stick together. If you plan on doing the same, I would recommend only try two flavors per batch.

Let the marshmallows sit overnight so they can dry out. Then you can cut them to whatever size you wish! Since my marshmallows were going to be used for s’mores, I cut them to fit my graham cracker.

After your marshmallows are cut up however you like them, give them a toss in a bit more powdered sugar. If you flavored your marshmallows with any of the powders I used, add a teaspoon or two to your powdered sugar before tossing in your marshmallows. For instance, I added a teaspoon of cocoa powder to about a half a cup of powdered sugar then tossed in my chocolate marshmallows to make them extra chocolatey! And ensure that they marshmallows don’t stick to one another. But mostly the former.

And voila! Homemade marshmallows! Nothin beat them! They are so soft and spongey. Even after a few days, they are still so soft and just melt in your mouth (I am currently eating left over marshmallows as I type. I work best on massive amounts of sugar.)

Even the plain vanilla ones are just better. But let me tell you, those peanut butter marshmallows are perfection! I brought some leftovers to a coworker who loves to drink hot cocoa (even in the Summers). He confirmed my suspicion that hot cocoa is 100% better with peanut butter marshmallows. I bet it would also be good with chocolate or strawberry marshmallows! Also, can imagine a s’more made with white chocolate and the strawberry marshmallows? Oh man, delish!

Now it’s time to go make some s’mores!

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Homemade Graham Crackers

August 15, 2017

Nothing like posting over 24 hours late (again). Game of Thrones has my Sunday priorities all messed up, guys. I may have spent all day making the ingredients for homemade s’mores so that I could post the recipes this week. But come 9:00 pm on Sunday night and my attention 100% belongs to HBO. But better, late than never, right?

Now I love graham crackers, but homemade graham crackers make the store bought version taste like cardboard. These homemade versions are so much richer and more flavorful and not quite as overly sweet like processed cookies tend to be.

Plus, you can make them in your food processor, which I love!

The hardest part of this whole recipe was finding graham flour. And by that I mean I didn’t find any graham flour. So instead I made my own by processing some wheat germ. Which also wasn’t easy to find. Quick tip, look for it near the oatmeal in your grocery store.

Mix together your freshly processed graham flour with whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and baking powder. Then cut in chilled butter until it forms a coarse corn meal like consistency.

Then mix in milk, molasses, and honey until it forms a ball of dough.

After chilling in the fridge for about an hour, the dough is ready to be rolled out. Graham crackers should be pretty thin, so I used the thinnest rolling pin bands to roll out my dough about 1/8th of an inch thick. I also uses a ravioli cutter to cut out my crackers into small scalloped squares. You could also use a pizza cutter to cut the dough into squares, or any shaped cutter to cut them into whatever shape you like.

On top of each cracker, poke a few holes so that they don’t puff up too much. Then sprinkle them with a bit of sugar.

Finally, bake them off in the oven until they are nice and crispy. Ideally, you won’t over bake them like I did. A few of them got a little charred. Fortunately for me, I like things that are on the burnt side.

Other than the ones that got a little extra toasty, these were some of the best graham crackers I have ever had. Like I said, there is just something about homemade graham cracker that is just so much better than the store bought kind (probably the freshness, lack of preservatives, ingredients you can pronounce). You can actually taste the subtle hints of molasses and honey.

Also, I love that they are a bit sturdier than the average graham cracker, making them ideal for some s’mores! Don’t you hate it when you are trying to assemble your s’more and your graham cracker breaks? Me too! I will be sharing more oh how I turned these grahams into s’mores this week! Stay tuned!

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S’more Brownies

July 20, 2016

Smore-Brownies-title To me, s’mores are the quintessential summer dessert. Sitting around the camp fire, roasting marshmallows is one of those memories that remind me most of Summer. Because of that, I knew I wanted to make something s’mores-related for our 4th of July-firework watching-picnic. Since we wouldn’t actually have access to a camp fire, I had to come up with some other way to serve up s’mores. Then it hit me, s’more brownies!

Smore Brownies-1

These s’more brownies are actually incredibly easy to make. If you follow me on snapchat, you saw that I made these brownies in less than 60 minutes while rushing out the door. All I used were some graham cracker crumbs (and butter), brownie mix, and marshmallows.

First, I mixed the graham cracker crumbs with butter and a hint of sugar, then pressed about 1-2 tbsp into the bottom of a muffin tin. I used the bottom of a sprinkles bottle to help me get an even press.

Then, I mixed together the brownie batter following the instructions on the back of the box. I have to say, this Ghiradelli brownie mix is the best boxed brownie mix I have tried. It is amazing!

Smore Brownies-6

Once the brownie were almost all the way baked, I put a marshmallow on top of each of the brownies and let those bake for about 3 minutes until they became slightly golden brown and puffy.

I had attempted charring the marshmallows under the broiler, but every time they became overly burned. That’s when I settled on the baking method which gets the marshmallows all gooey, then I could just go back over them with a kitchen torch to get them nice and charred.

Smore Brownies-11

To me, the char is the most important part. I love a good roasted marshmallow. Like, I want that sucker on fire! (Actually, the broiler method would have been fine for me, but I know other people don’t like they food that toasted.) It’s that gooey, fire roasted marshmallows are what make this brownie so good.

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First, you’ll bite into the top and sink your teeth into the soft marshmallow, then you’ll get a bite of the rich chocolate brownie. Then at the end, you’ll get that graham cracker crunch. It’s not exactly your fire-side s’more, but it is just as good and definitely brings back all those wonder summer memories.

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Chocolate Chip Cookie S’mores

July 1, 2016

The best thing about having a best friend who also likes to cook and bake is that when I have some weird recipe idea, she doesn’t look at me with judgement. Instead, she helps take the recipe to a whole other level. And that is exactly what happened with these chocolate chip cookie s’mores.

While she was in town a couple weeks ago, I wanted to enlist her help to make some sort of cookie sandwich. I didn’t know quite what I had in mind. But then through some brainstorming and bouncing ideas off each other we landed on chocolate chip cookie s’mores with roasted marshmallow fluff.

Sounds delicious, right? Boy was it!

We started by baking some classic chocolate chip cookies. Then once the cookies were out of the oven and cooled, we piped some marshmallow fluff on to one cookie and topped it with another.

Then to makes these taste even more like s’mores, we took the crème brulee torch to the exposed marshmallow fluff to get it nice and roasted.

A quick warning to any of you who choose to make these (and I highly recommend that you do), marshmallow fluff can get really runny. Once you assemble these cookie sandwiches, eat them immediately! Many chocolate chip cookies sandwiches sacrificed themselves for us to finally figure this out. And by sacrifice, I mean Michelle and I ate them because they weren’t “pretty” enough for the picture.

It’s a hard job, but someone has to do it.

An alternative would be to use the big marshmallows and roast them over a fire or under the broiler, then sandwich them between two chocolate chips cookies. I mean, however you have to do it to get the job done. A marshmallow between two cookies can never be bad, can it?

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S’mores Ice Cream

June 4, 2014

It seems a bit odd to put something that is naturally warm, gooey, and melty into ice cream, but it worked out splendidly. Possibly because there are few things more quintessential to American summers than ice cream and s’mores. There is nothing like a cold ice cream cone on a hot day or the perfectly camp-fire-roasted s’more on a summer’s night.

Fortunately, chocolate and marshmallows are made for ice cream (see Rocky Road). The wonderful thing about marshmallows is that they stay fairly gooey even when frozen. The graham crackers were the only thing that provided a bit of a challenge. They would get a bit soggy if left alone, but that is easily taken care of when covered in chocolate.

I broke up about 4 crackers into bite size pieces, poured a melted bar of dark chocolate over top, and tossed them until all the pieces were coated in chocolate. I laid them out on a baking sheet and popped them in the freezer to harden. I wanted the marshmallows to be a bit chared like a true s’more, so I broke out my trusty cream brule torch. You could also put them under a broiler for a few minutes to get the same effect.

Once everything was nice and cool, I mixed everything into some homemade vanilla ice cream. If you don’t have an ice cream maker or don’t feel like making ice cream, you could just add these pieces to softened store-bought vanilla ice cream.

I scooped my mixed ice cream into a loaf tin, covered it with plastic wrap, and put it back in the freeze to harden a bit more. This takes at least 2 hours, if not over night. After that its ready to serve! My husband suggested that some crushed graham crackers sprinkled on top would be an excellent addition. Some melted chocolate would also be nice, especially to add that melty element.

What are some other of your favorite ice cream flavors and combinations?

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