Gimme S’More!

Last month Matthew had to work in Austin and I decided to go out and visit him for a few days. While Matt worked, I toured the Capitol Building, checked out museums, and found a great independent bookstore. We had some awesome BBQ, and some fairly edible Tex-Mex. But the best thing we found was Sugar Mama’s Bakeshop. It is a tiny, cute little bakery with some quite delectable treats. They have a great assortment of cupcakes, dessert bars, pies, and made to order specialty cakes.

To satisfy our sugar craving, we grabbed a few cupcakes and my husband decided he needed to try a S’mores bar too. And OH MY GOODNESS, it was divine. In fact, I had to replicate the masterpiece this week. We were invited to a BBQ over the weekend, and I thought they would be the perfect treat!

I started with a graham cracker crust: finely crushed grahams, butter, dark brown sugar, and baked it for about 10 minutes. Then I made a thicker ganache, with a bag of semisweet chocolate chips, and a cup of heavy cream. I think next time i will use even less cream, to thicken the chocolate even more. It was really melty though, giving even more of an allusion of the real deal s’more.

I topped the whole thing with homemade marshmallow. It was surprisingly easy to make, and ridiculously addicting. I used a recipe from Alton Brown. He is a genius, and his recipes always seem to work for me. His lemon curd is excellent!

After letting the marshmallows dry out for a few hours, I browned the tops with my brand new culinary torch (thanks love)!

The trick to cutting these was dusting the knife with powdered sugar before each cut so that the marshmallow didn’t stick and result in the bar falling apart.

The bars were a big success.  At least, Matt and I liked them! And we got rid of most of them at the BBQ. I love being able to try new recipes and replicate good things that I have tasted before. Now I just have to figure out what to make this week, since we don’t have any birthdays or BBQs to go to!