Frosty S'more Cups

Thanks to us hosting Small Group again, I have a reason to bake! Although, I have to admit that my baking and cooking adventures have continued despite my lacking of posts here. Because of that, I may change my format here a bit. You see, like I said, I've been baking and cooking plenty. But taking pictures...not so much. And updating blogs. Ugh, Don't even remind me.

But back to the S'more cups..delicious. Though billed as a "summer treat" with the crazy weather we have been having, it still feels like it's summer around here despite that we are almost into October. So these were still the perfect, frosty treat that makes the memories of summer linger, just a little bit longer. One note: I didn't have a mini cheesecake pan so I opted to use muffin cups/wrappers instead. It still worked out great though for the next time, I may just look for a specialized tin, just for the sake of it :o)

Frosty S'more Cups
by EasyBaked

INGREDIENTS:

• 18 graham cracker squares (9 sheets or about 1 1/2 cups)
• 1/3 c. butter
• 1/2 c. milk chocolate chips
• 1/4 c. whipping cream
• 2 c. mini marshmallows
• 1 1/2 c. cold milk
• 1 box (4 servings, 3.9 oz)instant chocolate pudding
• 1 (8 oz) container of Cool Whip (thawed in fridge)
• 1/4 c. mini chocolate chips (as topping)

DIRECTIONS

• Crush graham crackers into fine crumbs.
• Melt butter and add to graham crackers, mixing until well combined to make crust.
• Prepare pan by placing disks into the bottom of each cup.
• Evenly divide crust mixture into all 12 cups, saving about 1/4 cup to use as topping later. (I used a Mini Tart Shaper to press crumbs firmly into the bottom of each cup).
• Place milk chocolate chips and whipping cream into a small bowl and microwave in 30 second increments, stirring in between, until melted and smooth.
• Spoon chocolate into a zip top bag, cut a tip off and evenly pipe chocolate into the center of each cup, on top of the crust.
• Divide Marshmallows among cups.
  Mix cold milk with pudding on medium speed for 2 minutes. Fold in 1/2 of the Cool Whip container (the rest will be used as topping). 
• Spoon filling into a large zip top bag (and ZIP it or you might have a mess!)  Clip a corner off and pipe pudding into each cup evenly.  Try to pipe it in between the marshmallows so that the whole cup is filled.  I did have a little left over (which was really tasty straight out of the bag!) 
• Use a knife to smooth the tops level with the top of the pan. 
• Freeze for at least a couple of hours. 
• Allow the pan to warm just a bit before popping each dessert cup out.  Poke a finger up through the hole in the bottom of the pan and grab that s’mores cup by its crust.  Remove the disk from the bottom and you are ready to add topping.  
• For topping, I just piped a little bit of the left over Cool Whip on each dessert using a decorating tip.  Then I sprinkled the remaining crust and mini chocolate chips on top. 
• Serve cold right away– or put them in a sealed container and freeze until you are ready to serve.
   

S'more cookies-revisited

Brad's clinic loves hosting potlucks. The great thing about these potlucks is that everyone is invited, from not only the PTs, PTAs, other clinicians/office staff but the patients as well. Earlier this week, Brad's Clinic Director approached him about throwing us a "baby shower" of sorts which includes the ever popular potluck :o)

Brad asked me if I would be able to make some cookies and after considering what sounded good to me, I decided on s'more cookies. I have made s'more cookies before but I didn't have any Hershey bars here so I started to think about how else I could possibly put these together.

And then I came across a variation of cookie that looked perfect. The base was a chocolate chip cookie, then topped with marshmallow and melted chocolate. Now that I could do based on my pantry. However, what about the graham cracker component? So I opted to make the Chocolate Chip Cookie portion of the previous recipe I had tried since it contained Graham Crackers. However, I also noticed that this made a much softer dough...so I added an extra 1/4 cup of both flour and graham in hopes of thickening it up a bit. It worked somewhat but the cookies, even after baked were pretty soft. I think I'll still tweak it a bit in the future but for now, I'll share what I did.

The consensus was a rich yet delicious gooey treat that everyone loved. The few that I didn't take to the clinic, I have been attempting to restrain myself from eating them all in one sitting. That wouldn't really help with this pregnancy weight gain :op. So yes, a "must do". Just a word of warning...marshmallows are a sticky mess. So be sure to try to keep the marshmallow on the cookie and not overflow onto the sheet. Though my pizza stones were easy to clean (I made sure to wash them right away), it was a mess trying to get the cookies off the stone that had the marshmallow overflow and to try to get those off of the wax paper I put them on (thinking that would help..) was even worse. But still, oh. so. good.

sorry, it's the only picture I have!

S'more Cookies, revisited
adapted and mashed recipe from Baked Perfection and Dear Lillie

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I used an additional 1/4 cup)
1 cup graham cracker crumbs (I used an additional 1/4 cup)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 dash of cinnamon

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

2 cups miniature chocolate chips

Marshmallows

Chocolate chips

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
• In a medium bowl combine the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, salt, and dash of cinnamon. In a second larger bowl beat together the butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. 
• Slowly beat in the flour mixture until smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheet.
• Bake for 8 minutes, and remove from the oven. 
• Cut marshmallows in half while cookies are in oven. When the cookies are done, place marshmallow halves on top, sticky side down, and return to oven for 2 minutes.
• While cookies are back in, pour chocolate bits into a microwave-safe container and melt for thirty seconds and stir, then melt for 15 and stir and repeat until they are completely melted.
• Remove cookies from oven, press the now-puffy marshmallows down with a finger or fork, and spoon or drizzle melted chocolate onto the tops.
• Let cool, then remove to a cookie rack until completely cooled

S'mores Stuffed Brownies

First of all, brownies AND s'mores? Can you get much better than that? Also, can I mention that while I am writing this blog post, Brad is just inches away from me doing one armed side crunches and other crazy gymnast workouts while I am drooling over these brownies? Yeah, I'm feeling a bit guilty, but not enough to keep from sharing this with you!

There are few food blogs out there that I am subscribed too and every so often, one of these creations catches my eye. A couple weeks ago I came across this beauty over at Picky Palate. S'mores. Stuffed. Brownies. The name in itself intrigued me and then her pictures tempted me even further. I just had to try it!

Let me take you back to June 9th. It was our 3 year anniversary and just happened to be Game 6 of the Stanley Cup. We had had the pleasure of watching a few of the games over at our friend's condo and the last time Nicki had graced us with warm chocolate chip cookies and ice cream (a heavenly combination). So when they invited us over to watch the game, I just had to make these goodies. I brought over the ingredients and got baking shortly after we arrived.

I didn't have any chocolate bars so I used chocolate chips instead..no biggie as far as substitutions go. We also only had a 9x9 pan. Therefore I didn't necessarily follow the exact measurements for the graham, chocolate, etc.  Additionally, I was a bit unsure of when to consider it done since distinguishing between gooey brownie and melted chocolate was somewhat difficult. I believe they ended up being in the oven longer than the recipe called for and therefore some of the marshmallows got a little caramelized but nothing damaging.

Oh yeah, and that whole "cool completely" part? We didn't do that...In fact, these brownies were quite rich (perhaps that is attributed by our lack of self control). At first I thought they were a little too rich for me but everyone else disagreed. However my hesitations certainly didn't stop me from getting another! I also noticed that the following day, they lost some of that initial richness since we actually allowed them to cool. Still very delicious and more easily able to eat a whole brownie. One difference I did notice between my brownies and Picky Palate's is that I am a little unsure how she got her marshmallows so flat. Not that it made any difference, in fact, I kind of liked them still puffy but in case you were wondering, so am I ;o)

S'mores Stuffed Brownies
Picky Palate


Batch Prepared in 8×8 inch baking pan; (adjust as needed for your pan)

1 box of your favorite brownie mix
4 1/2 full Graham Crackers
3 1/2 Full size Hershey’s Bars
16 large marshmallows

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Prepare brownie mix according to package directions.  
• Line foil into an 8×8 inch baking pan and spray generously with cooking spray.  
• Pour half the brownie batter into lined pan.
  
  
  
  
  (don't mind the orange tint...the blackhawks were on! 
  i couldn't take the time to mess with lighting)
  Layer with Graham Crackers 
  
   following Hershey Bars (or chocolate chips) 
  
   and marshmallows. 
  

• Pour remaining brownie batter over marshmallows.  
• Bake for 40-45 minutes or until toothpick comes mostly clean from center.  
• Remove from oven and let cool completely.  
• Carefully remove foil and brownies from pan.  Peel any foil from away from edges and cut into squares. 12 brownies

By the way..in case you haven't heard...the Blackhawks won!

S'more Cookies!

The past week or so, I have been craving marshmallows like none other. Lucky for me, we have an entire bag of both regular and minis. Unfortunately for me, we all know that marshmallows are not the healthiest snack on the block and thus I have made myself not indulge on the craving. I think it all started when I was talking to my newly appointed partner to decide on what we would cook with our kids during our playshop (Now that the school year is over, I am a step-up supervisor for a summer day camp). We had both decided that we would make "ice cream in a bag" with a type of cookie or something to go with it. Maybe even a s'more bake of some sort? Well later that day I came home to my trusty laptop and began my research. Sure, there were s'more bars out there but they required marshmallow fluff...which we didn't have since we had already given our shopping list to our coordinators and they had bought us a bunch of marshmallows. (wait, can you make marshmallow fluff at home? hmm...I'm going to have to look into that...) Either way, I found this yummy looking recipe over at Cookie Madness for s'more cookies. And that is where the fun began...

You see, this past week, Chicago has been in the middle of a major heat wave with mid-90's temps and the heat index well above that. Mixed with the fact that our apt does not have air and that baking requires a hot stove...well, I'm sure you can get the picture, runny dough, melting chocolate, just to name a few. The dough was not as stiff as cookie dough normally is (which I'm thinking the extreme heat was a factor though I do intend to make another batch with a little extra flour and/or some baking powder), they turned out alright visually despite their odd shapes due to them not wanting to cool on the sheet because it was just that hot inside our kitchen and me trying to transfer them to a wire rack. I then took them to our small group meeting and everyone loved them.


S'more Cookies
by Cookie Madness

3/4 cup softened butter (1 1/2 sticks)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups flour
1 cup graham crackers
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used mini chips)
1 cup mini marshmallows (I used slightly more than a cup)
2 Hershey bars, chopped up

Preheat oven to 375ºF.

In a stand mixer, combine the butter and sugars until fluffy. Mix in egg and vanilla until combined. Add the flour, graham crackers, salt, and baking soda, and mix well. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded tablespoon onto cookie sheets (I didn't use parchment, and one tray of cookies stuck a bit to the sheet, but the other was fine, so you may want to use parchment just in case). Bake for 8 minutes, and remove from the oven. Push 3 to 4 marshmallows and a few pieces of hershey bar into each cookies. Return to the oven and bake an additional 3-4 minutes until fully cooked. Cool cookies on a wire rack.

Makes 3 dozen cookies.