A Little More S'mores

Recently we had the pleasure of hosting our first cookout of the season. We invited fellow Cub Scout parents for a kid-free night of food, conversation, and relaxation before summer and all of it’s special brand of crazy kicked in.

Surprisingly, I was not in charge of the menu planning or cooking because Jim is the house “pit master” so when it comes to food for a ‘q he likes to take charge. And his selections (smoked pulled pork, fresh potato salad and coleslaw) made me happy to let him take the lead. Though I will admit I was feeling just a little left out since I do spend most of my days obsessing over food:) So I was in charge of the appetizers (from scratch french onion dip, chips and roasted peanuts) and dessert.

I wanted the dessert to be casual and something that did not take utensils and plates to eat. This was a casual, outdoor affair and I wanted the dessert to work with that. So I thought about s’mores. They were perfect for the casual and outdoor part, but I wanted them to be more. We all work hard week in and week out and I should do better than just Hershey’s, marshmallows and graham crackers. So I improvised and the result was amazing! Swapping out the milk chocolate for 70% dark and giving it a pop of health with fresh strawberries took a good dessert to a decadent place. I originally called these “Grown Up S’mores” but realized you do not need to be a grown up to enjoy them. You just need to want a little more to your S’mores:)

A Little More S’mores

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Total Time: 7 minutes | Serves: varies

Ingredients

• good quality dark chocolate bars, broken into pieces that will fit on 1/2 graham cracker
• marshmallows
• graham crackers
• strawberries, rinsed and thinly sliced

Directions

1. Have a good fire going in your backyard or open area where fires are allowed and gather some perfect marshmallow roasting sticks
2. Prep all ingredients and bring them outside, close enough to the fire to make the s’mores but not so close as to burn them
3. Break one graham cracker in half and place a piece of dark chocolate and 1-2 strawberry slices on one half
4. Toast marshmallows to personal preference, ensuring they are at least melty on the inside
5. Carefully remove marshmallow from the stick and place on second half of graham cracker and quickly top the chocolate/strawberry half with the melted marshmallow half
6. Smoosh it up and dig into all that summertime nostalgia with “a little more”.

Tips

• The order in which you top the crackers will not make or break this recipe. So long as you have dark chocolate, marshmallows, strawberries and graham crackers you are not messing this up in any way!
• If you are craving this and a fire is not possible or it is -5 degrees out, you can pop a marshmallow on top of 1/2 graham cracker and microwave it in 5 second increments to get that good melt (without that fire char of course). My microwave takes 10 seconds to melt one marshmallow but it is best to do this in small time bursts until you are sure of your microwave’s power. Cleaning exploded marshmallow does not top my list of my fun ways to spend my time and I’m guessing that is true for most of you as well!
• If you are not really a dark chocolate fan, milk would work as well but be bold and get a 55% dark! It has most of the sweetness of milk with just tiny hints of the richer flavors in dark chocolate. Over time, try to move your dark percentage up a little and before you know it, you will be craving the 70% and will be a health powerhouse (well maybe not but dark is a bit healthier than milk so:)