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This one-of-a-kind cookbook features 70 luscious ways to revolutionize s'mores with candy, chocolates, and fruits of every variety. Published by Gibbs Smith, it has been featured on radio and TV shows all across the country. Buy now - or for photos, recipes, events a recipe content, and more, see the official S'mores web site!
More info: Mint lovers, start melting! This mint medley features velvety Andes mints and a crispy mint cookie. 3 to 4 Andes mints Unwrap mints and melt them on the graham cracker (see page 10). Roast the marshmallow. Once the chocolate has melted, remove graham cracker from the heat and top with roasted marshmallow and mint cookie. Note: The Andes mint is the nobility of the mint world. With its creamy consistency, high meltability, and luscious flavor, the Andes mint can be incorporated into almost any s'more for unbelievable results. For a stronger flavor of fresh peppermint, swap out the Andes mints for two squares of a delicious After Eight candy bar. Sample Recipe: Chocolate Raspberry Croissant Chocolate croissants are good. S'more croissants are way better. 1 plain croissant Cut croissant lengthwise, making the bottom half thinner than the top half. Arrange the chocolate on the bottom half of the croissant and melt (see page 10). Happily, the butter in the pastry will keep it from burning. Roast the marshmallow. Once the chocolate has melted, remove croissant from heat and press raspberries into the chocolate. Top with roasted marshmallow and the top half of the croissant. It's not just a matter of adding new ingredients. That's a big part of it, of course, but the real key to unbelievable s'mores is melting those ingredients. And that's a step that needs some explaining. Though we all associate s'mores with campfires, you can make the recipes in this book without exposing even a fingernail to the wilderness. Barbecues, fireplaces, home s'more makers, ovens, and stovetops can deliver the same goods as a stick and a fire pit. So whatever your preferred cooking arrangement, read on to get all the tips and tricks you'll need to make sublime s'mores. Choosing Your Ingredients If you're going to make a specific s'more for a specific occasion, well, this one's a no-brainer. Pick your recipe and buy the ingredients. Voilà! For parties and camping trips, however, I'd highly recommend the Buffet Experience. It can be momentous, even life-changing—especially for those who never dreamed such a thing could exist. Imagine surprising your hardened, unsuspecting campfire cronies with an eye-popping spread of chocolates, sliced fruits, and outrageous toppings, bathed in the flickering light of a propane lantern. Your friends are guaranteed to love you forever and might very well cry with joy. The best way to plan your buffet is to flip through this book, note the recipes you'd most like to try, and make a list of ingredients. Your budget may dictate how much you buy, but I'd recommend choosing enough ingredients to make at least a few different kinds of s'mores. Be sure to consider the melting factor when purchasing your chocolates—it's very tempting to save some money by grabbing those giant, thick versions of your favorite candy bars, but keep in mind that if you like melted chocolate—and we will dwell deeply on melted chocolate—you will have difficulty with these monster-sized treats. On the other hand, some people prefer their chocolate unmelted, so there's no harm in stocking up on both slender and substantial candy bars when choosing your chocolate. When it comes to marshmallows, nothing roasts so well as your standard store-bought varieties. In addition to the regular white puff, in some grocery stores you can also find marshmallows coated in toasted coconut (deliciously paired with melted caramel in my Roasty-Toasty recipe, page 70). However, you can add some beautiful color and interesting flavor to your s'mores by using hand-made marshmallows, now available from many specialty food stores and candy shops—and their web sites. These cube-shaped confections feature flavors such as raspberry, banana, and chocolate, and are usually bigger than standard marshmallows. Their shape and size can make them difficult to roast thoroughly, so I like to cut them in half before roasting, or use a metal cooking rod to ensure the centers get gooey. Because these specialty marshmallows can be expensive and hard to find, I have not used them in many of my recipes—but if you have them, feel free to use them in place of regular marshmallows. You will spot them in photos throughout this book. As for graham crackers, use any kind you like. The cinnamon and chocolate varieties taste almost identical to regular honey grahams when used in s'mores, but they do look quite pretty—so you can use them whenever you want a fancier presentation. For an extra bit of chocolate, you can also try topping your s'mores with chocolate-dipped graham crackers instead of plain ones. You're Going to Take All That Camping? Folks today have numerous and conflicting ideas about what camping is and should be. Clearly some campers must still eat nothing but oatmeal and ramen noodles, because after hearing about some of my recipes, a few people have looked at me blankly and asked, "You're going to take all that camping?" Well, sure—some of my camping friends eat better around the fire than I do at home! We all believe in eating well in the woods, and that includes great s'mores. While some of the recipes in this book may be too much for the oatmeal-ramen type of camper, almost everyone should be able to make several s'more varieties using ingredients that they would normally bring on any camping trip. Some of the easiest and tastiest s'mores contain nothing more exotic than fresh or dried fruit. It's also easy to replace plain milk chocolate with your favorite candy bar, or graham crackers with cookies. So don't worry—s'mores are for everyone! Setting Up Your Buffet Once you're ready to make a night of it, pick a convenient spot and arrange your ingredients. It usually works best to use a well-lighted table a short distance from the fire so that buffet visitors can choose their ingredients without tripping over roasters and sticks. Using a table also keeps the ingredients orderly and out of the grime; you can stash ingredients in different people's laps around the fire, but this lazier arrangement often leads to common s'more afflictions, such as the Unspeakably Broken Grahams, the Suspiciously Vanishing Chocolate Bar, and the dreaded Dirt-Encrusted Marshmallow Bag. If all this sounds too cumbersome, just make s'mores indoors or during the day. Sure, you'll lose some atmosphere, but you'll also eliminate many of the challenges that can besiege a customary campfire. Cooking Your S'mores One of the biggest and most disappointing lies I've ever heard was that a hot marshmallow will melt a piece of chocolate. This is patently untrue. A hot marshmallow will create a microlayer of warmth between it and a cold, hard chocolate bar, but that's about it. It's a crime, and so I offer a lot of melting tips in this book. While s'mores are still tasty with unmelted chocolate, I believe that the meltiness of a s'more is just as important as its exciting ingredients. So I'll go through the melting techniques for each heat source—fire, barbecue grill, oven, fireplace, s'more kit/stovetop, and microwave—to set you on the course to truly gooey treats.
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