GrillinFools
Every year, my extended family and I head to Northern Michigan in the summer. Between 24 and 34 people head north to escape the heat and humidity of the Midwestern Summers. Most of our meals up there are cooked over coals/fire. One of the mainstays of that yearly trip is the fire pit we sit around in the evening, often times roasting marshmallows and making s’mores. This last year on one of those cool nights around the fire making s’mores, someone put the chocolate and between two cookies rather than two graham crackers. That got me thinking. Why do we always make s’mores out of the same graham crackers, same marshmallows and the same milk chocolate bars? I’d been thinking about this for a few weeks when I finally decided to put my new evil plan into place last night. So let’s get to making a S’mores Bar.
S’mores Bar Ingredients:
- Graham crackers
- Milk chocolate bars
- Plain marshmallows
(now that we have the tried and true covered, let’s get to the new, cool stuff) - Chocolate stuffed marshmallows (yeah, that’s a thing and it will change your life)
- Chocolate marshmallows
- Cookies and cream white chocolate bars
- Toffee chocolate bars (Heath or Skor bars)
- Dark chocolate bars
- Milk chocolate bars with peanuts
- Milk chocolate crunch bars
- Fudge striped cookies
- Windmill cookies
- Chessmen cookies
- Vanilla wafers
- Chocolate chip cookies
- White chocolate macadamia nut cookies
Candy Bars
True, I’m all for changing things up and pushing the boundaries of the common s’more, but by all means, start off with the classics of the milk chocolate bars, standard marshmallows and graham crackers. But then grab other varieties of chocolate bars. And no, this is not sponsored by Hershey’s. But the flatter candy bars work the best so find whatever you like. One thing I wanted to try but they didn’t have where I bought my s’mores supplies – peppermint bark. I would’ve gone with Andy’s mints too, but they didn’t have those either. I’ll give it a try once we get closer to the holidays.
Cookies
For cookies (in lieu of graham crackers), those fudge striped cookies work really well because they have a layer of chocolate on the bottom. More on that later. Otherwise, pick what you like. I listed the cookies we used (fudge striped and windmill cookies) but also some of the cookies I would like to try out in the future
Chocolate Filled Marshmallows
As far as marshmallows, I can’t recommend these things enough:
Now, when you pick the package up, it will feel like they are a bit stale. That’s because they are not entirely pillowy soft marshmallows. They are marshmallows with a fun size candy bar stuffed inside. And I’m just going to tell you that once you go chocolate stuffed, there’s no going back. If I could make a BBQ analogy here. Regular roasted marshmallows are like perfectly cooked brisket and roasted chocolate stuffed marshmallows are like perfectly cooked brisket burnt ends. And if you know me, that is beyond high praise.
Skip the large marshmallows
One item people are often drawn to when doing s’mores for the first time in a long time, are the extra large marshmallows, but I’m not a fan. The problem is they are too heavy once they get warmed up to stay on the marshmallow skewers/sticks. They fall off before they get nice and toasted all the way around. We did them one year up in Michigan and threw the bag away after trying to cook just a couple of them. So stick to the standard size marshmallows:
For this cook, I sparked up my Hooray Grill which is a Santa Maria style cooker:
What is a Santa Maria style grill? It is a grill that has a large basin for fuel (firewood, charcoal, a combo of the two) and a grill grate that goes over it that can be raised and lowered. This model also has a removable rotisserie. This one made by the Hooray Grill Company is ridiculously over engineered and meant to last for decades, if not centuries as opposed to so many grills these days that are build for three years and then need to be replaced. I can’t stand that.
For dinner I had made a bunch of burgers and some grilled onions on my Hooray which had plenty of room for a dozen burgers and a cast iron pan:
Here are some of the regular recipes I’ve done on the Hooray Grill.
Start the fire
After I made the burgs for the fam, I raised the grill grates all the way up and threw a couple logs on the fire and stoked it up. Then I handed the marshmallow skewers to the kids. My four year old daughter jumped ahead of the three older boys and got hers on the fire first. Keep in mind she’d never actually roasted marshmallows before. Not once. She was determined to show she could do it over the protests of, “Maybe when you are a little older,” or, “Let me roast them for you.”
She eventually relaxed and had fun with it:
While I’m not going to claim that my daughter is marshmallow roasting savant, but here is her first ever pair of roasted marshmallows:
I’m not going to show you the other side of the one on the left as that one may or may not have touched one of the smoldering logs and gotten some black stuff all over the back side. But based on the marshmallow on the right, I’m calling her a prodigy! Hey, it’s my website. I can do what I want!
She wasn’t my only child enjoying the roasting aspect of this process:
For some reason, my youngest son didn’t roast any. I’m not sure why. But let’s get back to the s’mores themselves now that we have some marshmallows all toasty and melty.
Assemble the S’mores
Here we have an upside down fudge striped cookie, a piece of cookies and cream white chocolate bar, the roasted marshmallow and another fudge striped cookie on top:
Did I mention these fudge striped cookies have a layer of chocolate on the bottom?
I can personally attest to the fact that this combo is extremely delicious and that imprint on those cookies might exactly match my teeth:
And here we have a couple of those overly roasted marshmallows a lot of people like, on top of a piece of toffee chocolate bar on top of a windmill cookie:
I can also personally attest that this combo was quite delicious too (the crunch of the toffee is amazing):
S’Mores Bar Summary
That’s it. I’ll continue to buy the basics for the old school folks that like the status quo, but for me, I’m going to continue to push the boundaries of what is a s’more from now on. I highly recommend it. Also keep in mind, despite making s’mores every year on vacation for nearly the last two decades in Northern Michigan, I haven’t actually had a s’more that entire time. I’m all for roasted marshmallows alone. But now that I know I can get creative with these and the amazing new flavor profiles that follow has me eager to eat more than just roasted marshmallows.
If you have any questions or comments on this cook, feel free to leave them below or send me an email and I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can.
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S'mores Bar
Ingredients
- graham crackers
- milk chocolate bars
- plain marshmallows
Now that we have the tried and true covered, let's get to the new, cool stuff
- chocolate stuffed marshmallows (yeah, that's a thing and it will change your life)
- chocolate marshmallows
- cookies and cream white chocolate bars
- toffee chocolate bars (Heath or Skor bars)
- dark chocolate bars
- milk chocolate bars with peanuts
- milk chocolate crunch bars
- fudge striped cookies
- windmill cookies
- chessmen cookies
- vanilla wafers
- chocolate chip cookies
- white chocolate macadamia nut cookies
Instructions
- Roast the marshmallows over an open fire
- Place a cookie or graham cracker down and put a piece of chocolate bar on top of it
- Set the roasted marshmallow(s) on top of the piece of chocolate bar
- Top with another cookie or graham cracker
- Eat s'mores and enjoy
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