I Want S'More Bars!

What brings you back to those nights where you could smell pine trees, feel the warm yet crisp night air, hear the fire crackling? Yes, I was thinking the same thing...Smores.

Luckily, I never had to wait till I was outdoors for smores because as a family we never did "outdoorsy" things. My dad (the most outdoorsy one) would bring home logs or random pieces of wood from his construction sites to start a fire in our fireplace. We would use the twigs he cut off the trees in our backyard to roast the marshmallows and we would sit cozy and indoors making our classic campfire treat. My smores would be sans chocolate (I've never been the biggest fan), and the marshmallows always burnt to a crisp!

I decided to make something very similar yet a little more sophisticated!

My Smore Bars

Ingredients:

I followed a portion of my idol's recipe to make the caramel and the graham cracker crust. I tweaked it a bit and added my own flare of course!

My Cuisinart food processor is about my age. But hey, it still works! I pulsed the cinnamon graham crackers, white sugar and melted butter until I was left with moldable crumbs!

CHALLENGE Butter makes everything look and taste great! It really is the best brand in butter! :) You can taste the difference. They came out with this new Tuscan butter that is soooo delicious. It's flavor infused with garlic and herbs! It pretty much can go on anything savory, but I digress.

You'll want to press all the graham cracker crumbs into a baking dish thats lined with parchment paper and sprayed well with PAM. Bake it for about 12-15 minutes at 350º, or until its nice and toasted and not as moist!

To make the caramel the recipe highly recommend a candy thermometer which I do not have (should've added that to my wish list). I just waited the estimated amount of time the recipe called for and prayed that it would come out right. It did, but I wouldn't press my luck a second time.

Who knew caramel was so easy to make. All you need is brown sugar, heavy cream, and lots of butter. :)

Once the caramel was ready I poured it on top of the cooled crust.

I sprinkled sea salt all over the gooey caramel to give it that sweet and salty touch.

Before adding the marshmallows I let the caramel set in the freezer for about 20 minutes. Then I tossed marshmallows evenly across the entire layer of caramel and stuck it under the broiler on high for literally 1 minute. Yes, my kitchen almost caught on fire and yes, I should have set the broiler on low to get a more golden toasted marshmallow top. However, I did mention above that when I was a kid my marshmallows were always burnt to a crisp. :)

Luckily these came out just how I liked them and everyone who got to try them enjoyed them too!

Enjoy a little piece of my childhood. :)