S'mores Bars

As I've mentioned, "busy season" is back in full swing and that means Drew's working a lot.  And that means he's got coworkers who remember that I bake and beg me (via him) for treats every week.  And as I love baking and getting whatever I make out of the house quickly, I'm happy to oblige!

I found these S'mores Bars on Pinterest a year or so ago and they've become a staple in the Solomon house ever since.  And man oh MAN are they heavenly!  I've made them for Drew's coworkers before and they were begging for them this week so here we go!

The Cast of Characters: marshmallow fluff, salt, vanilla extract, flour, chocolate bars, butter, graham crackers (or any other cracker/biscuit cookie), brown sugar, white granulated sugar, and an egg.

The Irish aren't privy to the greatness of graham crackers, so I bought my favorite cookie/biscuit to crush up.  (These things are dangerously good though.  I've been known to eat whole sleeves of them at a time.  Leave me alone!  That was 6 months ago when I was lonely and eating my emotions!)

So put enough of these pups (or your favorite graham cracker) in a bag to crush up to make 3/4 cup to 1 cups worth. 

Meanwhile, measure out a 1/4 cup of brown sugar...

A 1/2 cup of granulated sugar....

And a 1/2 cup of butter.

The Irish also don't sell typical American sticks of butter, but rather large chunks of butter measured in grams.  I don't have a food scale (packed away somewhere in Dallas) so...I have to slice off slabs of butter and attempt to cram them into the measuring cup required.  It's very annoying and messy.

Shoving butter in a half cup.  Fun.

So add the butter and sugars together and whip them up.  (The recipe also calls for a hand mixer but I make due with what I have.  Or rather...don't have.)

When that's done, add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract...

And an egg.

Mix mix mix!

In a separate bowl, add a 1 and 1/3 cups of flour...

And 3/4 cup of your graham crackers (though I used almost a full cup because my pan was bigger)...

And 1 teaspoon of baking powder...

And a 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

Mix that bowl up too.

The recipe states to "add [the flour mixture] to the butter mixture and mix at a low speed."  So I dumped it all in and whipped it up fast.

It should turn into a really thick, hard-to-mix-without-hurting-your-arm-like dough.

So...then you take half of this difficult but delicious dough and press it into the bottom of an 8x8 inch pan (though again, I don't have one so mine was slightly bigger).

You really gotta get your fingers in there to flatten it all out.  Voila!

Now it's time to unwrap your 10 oz. of chocolate bars.  

And lay them out all over your dough.  

You may also realize halfway through this process that you don't have enough chocolate bars, so you may have to run across the street to your local market and grab 5 more humongous chocolate bars and get judged by the checkout guy.  A-hole.

Now it's time for the most difficult part of this recipe: the marshmallow fluff.  This stuff is sticky and not-easily-spreadable and annoying to work with.  But bottom line: you gotta spread it all over the chocolate somehow so hop to it.  It's not gonna spread itself.  

Blah.  Help.

Ehh...this'll do.

Then the recipe calls for you to flatten out the remaining half of the dough and place it over the marshmallow fluff by flattening it in a plastic bag, cutting the bag open, and placing it on top.  I don't wanna waste a plastic bag for that so I usually just flatten it out by hand and fit it all together like a puzzle, like so...

Then pop this bad boy in a 350°F oven for 30-35 minutes, until the top is lightly browned.   

Yum city!

Now.  The hardest part of making this recipe is waiting an hour or two to cut into these delicious gooey morsels of happiness.  If you cut them before they're cooled completely, they become a sticky melty mess and ooze everywhere.  Trust me, I've done it.

Oh baby!!  So so so good.  I had to test them before I gave them to strangers, duh.  

So anyway, I recommend you make these ASAP (like I do every other baked good) because they really are amazing and wonderful and Drew told me that his people have already been raving about them.  Whew!  That's news to my ears.  And fragile ego.  

One of these days I'm going to post the actual recipe here on my blog in a cute, readable format when I know how, but today is not that day.  So I shall link you to the recipe for these amazing creations here and wish you happy baking!