S'mores Bars!

Here it is. The third and final item for my honors chorus bake sale! I have to put it out there right away: these were the best of the three. By miles. And miles and miles. I loved these.

I have proclaimed many times that I am not a chocolate fan. But when taken in moderation, and paired with other equally sized ingredients, it can be tolerable, if not yumm-o. And thus my weakness for the concept of s'mores is justified. I adored the s'mores cupcakes from Martha Stewart and these are right up there with them.

These were an easy item for a bake sale as they were in bar form and so quick to make. However, they did get a tad melty as it was a hot weekend here in Pittsburgh. I would say the are perfect for anytime of the year. Like now, as I am writing this. I weant them.

These were so delicious and the perfect (and I mea

n perfect ) way to satisfy your sweet tooth. Assembling them was very fun because it was just like making a mega s'more!

Laying down the graham cracker base

Adding in the lovely chocolate layer

Spreading on the fluffy gooey marshmallow layer

Topping it off with the final graham cracker layer

S'more Cookie Bars
from Baked Perfection

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 (approximately 7 full graham crackers)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 super-sized (5 oz.) dark chocolate bars (e.g. Hershey’s)
1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme/fluff (not melted marshmallows)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.

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.

Place chocolate bars over dough.

Spread marshmallow fluff evenly over the chocolate layer.

Place remaining dough in a single layer on top of the fluff.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool completely before cutting into bars

MSC: S'mores Cupcakes

Oh geez these are late!!!! Please please please forgive me=) Also, I should make mention of that fact that I skipped last month's cupcake. It was total coconut and no one in my family can stand it so I couldn't justify buying three different forms of coconut to use in a cupcake I wouldn't eat and then have the leftover ingredients sitting around laying in waste. So, okay on to this month's: S'mores!!

I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about these. I don't really like, (let's see how shall I put this), chocolate or chocolate pairing type cupcakes. For s'mores of course it's all about that chocolate, even in a small amount. But I was interested in trying these!

I had one big issue though. These came out pretty toasted, meaning on the verge of burnt! I was freaking out, my mom said they were kind of bad (don't worry she was very polite and I was asking her to be honest!), yet my dad said they were okay. So I waited until the next day and I tried one. Not bad. Definitely passable, and without ganache or frosting yet. So that day after school I ganache-d and frosted them. And I'm bringing them to a party tonight, so we'll see how the reviews are. I can't wait to try them all put together!!

This was the night I made them after some time to cool. At this point we thought they might have been a tad burnt=/ It's amazing what some resting time can do, though. By the next day the had gathered more moisture, solving the dry crumb issue I had noticed.


The good thing about posting this late is that I got to read the reviews from other people's blogs to get some tips and pointers. And I definitely picked up that the marshmallow frosting in the book was not the way to go. Incidentally, Martha has another marshmallow frosting recipe on her website that worked fantastic and tasted amazing! It wasn't overly sweet at all. It piped beautifully and I didn't have to feel too rushed in my piping. This marshmallow frosting was amazing! It will for sure be my go-to frosting if I need something in the marshmallow realm! So fluffy (which I hear the other recipe lacked) and was not overly sweet like I would have expected.


Marshmallow Frosting
(I halved the recipe and only used 3 eggs because it's all I had. It worked out just fine and gave me enough for 18 cupcakes or so!)

From Martha Stewart

3 large egg whites
1 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoons pure vanilla extract (I forgot to put this in!)

Directions:

Place egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar in the heatproof bowl of an electric mixer. Set over a saucepan with simmering water. Whisk constantly until sugar is dissolved and whites are warm to the touch, 3 to 4 minutes.

Transfer bowl to electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, and beat, starting on low speed, gradually increasing to high, until stiff, glossy peaks form, 5 to 7 minutes. Add vanilla, and mix until combined. Use immediately.

I was really scared to pipe these. I have never piped before but I really wanted to go with a nice presentation. I used an extremely old pamper chef tool we had lying around and it worked fabulously!

Added: No one at the party found them burnt (yesss!). And I just loved these! They are may favorite out of Martha's collection, but I'm super glad I made these because they were just soooo fun and cute!

Check out what are club will be doing in the months to come over here and also see the blogroll to drool over everyone else's cupcakes!