Sunday, May 2, 2010

Please sir, I want s'more.

Quick, name that musical!  Hint: It's just about the worst musical for an all-girls school to do because it has a total of like, four female roles.  I'm not bitter about having to dress up as a boy or anything.  Really, I'm over it.




But this post isn't about gruel (who would want more of that?!).  It's about your favorite summertime treat minus the graham crackers that always break in all the wrong places, the millions of Hershey's wrappers blowing away in the wind, and your North Face smelling like campfire.  Granted, all those things are kinda nice in their own way, but for when they're not readily available (hello apartment in the middle of the city), these bars make quite a salivating, ahem, satisfying replacement.

The recipe is adapted from Baking Bites.  We made them pretty much as directed and were pleased with the results (as evidenced by me eating four of them in one day), but next time we'll change a couple things:
1) There was too much chocolate (did I really just say that?!).  Next time we'll try using smaller (thinner) chocolate bars.
2) Overall, the bars were a little hefty.  Next time we'll try making smaller, thinner cookie bars by one and half-ing the cookie base, increasing the fluff to a whole jar (or maybe even 1.5 jars), using the thinner chocolate bars, and baking in a 9x13 pan.  The bigger pan will not only create thinner bars, but also make more bars - better for feeding a crowd like we normally do.  Of course, if you only want to feed yourself and your equally s-more-happy sister, you could still use the bigger pan...we won't tell.


So let us know if you try the above changes, but even without them, we gobbled these up.  Oliver - you ask where is love?  Well, I'm pretty sure it's right here in perfect layers of graham, milk chocolate, and marshmallow.


S'more Cookie Bars
adapted from Baking Bites
Makes 16 bars

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs*
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 4.5 oz milk chocolate bars (e.g. Hershey’s)
1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme/fluff (not melted marshmallows)


1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment, leaving overhang on all four sides.

2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in egg and vanilla. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture and mix at a low speed until combined. Divide dough in half and press half of dough into an even layer on the bottom of the prepared pan.

3. Place chocolate bars over dough. Two 4.5 oz Hershey’s bars should fit perfectly side by side, but break the chocolate (if necessary) to get it to fit in a single layer no more than 1/4 inch thick.

4. Spread chocolate with marshmallow creme or fluff.

5. To create top layer of cookie, place a piece of wax paper over your baking dish and run your fingers along the edges of the dish to form creases.  Remove wax paper.  Press remaining dough onto wax paper inside the "lines" of the square you just created.  Invert dough onto marshmallow fluff and peel away wax paper.  Alternately, you can place remaining dough in a single layer on top of the fluff by flattening the dough into small shingles and laying them together.

6. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until lightly browned.  Cool completely.  Using parchment overhang, lift bars out of baking pan and onto cutting board. Cut into 16 bars.

*Note: 3/4 cup crumbs is approximately 7 full-sized graham cracker sheets, whizzed in the food processor until fine.

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