Homemade S’mores

Just in time for your chilly fall nights…some recipes for homemade s’mores! Last year at Halloween I got a hankering for homemade s’mores. You know how sometimes you get an idea and you just have to do it! You just can’t stop thinking about it until you actually do it. That’s how it was for me and homemade s’mores last year. We stayed home from a family dance so I could make these while the kids watched Star Wars, which is a rare treat. I hardly ever let them watch it because it gets them acting crazy. I decided I could handle it that weekend. It knew it would be quite a job to make all three elements for s’mores from scratch in one night, so I actually planned ahead (something I am learning to do more of) and made each element on a separate night. When I do homemade s’mores again, I will cut the marshmallows into smaller pieces, as they are so goopy once they melt and they really aren’t my favorite part of the ensemble. Chocolate is! Anyway,we had fun using the fire in our fireplace for the roasting. If you don’t have a fireplace or fire pit in your backyard, you could melt the marshmallows over a stovetop burner, held over the burner on the end of your roasting stick. Or build the s’mores,arrange them on a cookie sheet, and then pop in the oven to melt slightly. Just don’t leave in too long or they turn into puddles. I speak from experience. I don’t remember how long I left them in, but if I were to do it again in the oven, I would experiment and start with one minute at the lowest setting and then keep checking the marshmallows every minute until they are slightly gooey and the chocolate is slightly melted.

I have had many experiences this past year making s’mores, and I offer the following tip to have the best, flavorful experience:

1. Have the crackers ready to receive the roasted marshmallows, with chocolate on top, as close to the fire as possible, so that the warmth from the fire gets the chocolate already melting, and so you can quickly slide the melted marshmallows off the roasting stick onto the chocolate and melt them more with their residual heat.

2. Then quickly put the top cracker on and squish the marshmallow down to get the pressure and heat from the marshmallow to melt the chocolate even more.

3. Have lots of baby wipes handy to wipe sticky hands.

4. Have the chocolate as thin as possible, because the whole thing tastes better if chocolate is melted. The chocolate can’t melt much if it’s too thick for the roasted marshmallow to melt. You have to have the right ratio of chocolate to marshmallow and crackers.

5. Roll the crackers as thin as possibly as well.

5. Or course, don’t let the marshmallow burn. Roast close to coals and not a flame and let the marshy get golden brown.