Ooh, some exciting things are a-brewing here at SKC.
It’s time to spread the love. Food love, that is.
Starting this Friday, December 7th, I’ll be launching Food Love Fridays, a once a month Friday-of-most-months post featuring at least one food-related thing I’m loving and want you to know about.
What, exactly?
Well, it could be one of many things, like:
- a great blog
- a product or gadget
- a restaurant, cookbook or recipe
- an awesome technique or tip
- a Must-Go-To food destination
- or simply a picture that got the culinary juices flowing
It’s all about the sharing, and spreading the 411 on all food-things great as well as the love.
‘Cause you can never have enough of that. Love that is.
Image from Walltor.Com
So mark your calendars and if you happen to stumble across anything food-related you’re loving, just drop me a line and let me know about it. I may just feature it in a future FLF post.
Just send all suggestions to smallkitchenchronicles [at] gmail [dot] com or leave me a lovely comment. Done.
In the meantime, let’s make some s’mores! But not just any s’mores, but ultimate oven s’mores.
What makes them so? For starters, making them couldn’t possibly get any easier.
They go from the oven to your hot little hands in less than 10 minutes.
But as impressive as all that is, what really puts these warm, gooey cuties over the ultimate-edge are how tremendously gourmet they can be with a little ingenuity.
S’mores?! Yes, my friends, s’mores. And without even a hint of pretension.
Just sprinkle crystallized ginger chips on them, a few dried Bing cherries, or some freshly grated orange zest. Even dried instant coffee or crumbled pretzels.
(Yup, that’s those in the corner).
And while you’re at it, Maestro, a pinch of cardamom or cayenne pepper will do just nicely, as well as your favorite fresh berry, even jam or jelly too.
And if you really want to let your hair down, shower on some crumbled bacon. Yup, I said it, shower. And bacon.
Just think Make-Your-Own-Ice-Cream-Sunday meets the Best-Ever-Fruit-and-Cheese-Parings-Party and you’ll start to catch my drift. I.E. Your s’more’s a divinely tasty, blank canvas. And your possibilities? Endless.
See you all here on Friday, everyone!
Ultimate Oven S’mores
Recipe by Christina Lazarakis of Small Kitchen Chronicles
Makes 8 S’mores
For S’more Base
4 graham cracker sheets
bittersweet chocolate chips
mini marshmallows
Ultimate Flavor Addition Ideas
crystallized ginger chips
dried Bing cherries
pretzel sticks, broken in half
milk chocolate toffee bits
orange (or any citrus) zest
your favorite fruit jam or jelly
fresh berries
your favorite, finely chopped nut
pinch of cardamom or cayenne pepper
instant coffee, unbrewed
crumbled Best-Ever Bacon
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
Adjust your top oven rack to second highest rack position and preheat oven to 350 Degrees F.
For each s’more, break one graham cracker sheet in half. Place both bottom sides facing up onto your prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle what will be your top half of s’more with mini marshmallows, allowing just a bit of room from sides to allow for expansion while baking.
Sprinkle the other graham cracker piece — which will be your bottom half of s’more — with chocolate chips. Top chocolate chips with one (or more) flavor addition ideas of your choice. Feel free to experiment; that’s part of the fun!
Repeat the two steps above with remaining graham cracker sheets.
Tip: If you are using a “sticky” flavor addition idea like, say, jam — just reverse the “bottom half’s” order — i.e. spread jam onto graham cracker and then top with chocolate chips.
Transfer baking sheet to top oven rack and bake s’mores for 6 minutes — making sure to check at the 5 minute mark — or until marshmallows are browned.
Note: Marshmallows will brown very quickly at this point, so be sure to watch them carefully!
When marshmallows are browned, remove s’mores from oven and assemble by placing top halves of ‘smores — with marshmallow side down — on top of bottom halves (i.e. your chocolate-topped sides).
Let sit for 2 minutes to cool slightly and serve immediately.
Note: These s’mores will be super messy gooey eating! So if you prefer less of a delicious, gooey mess, add the chocolate chips after the s’mores come out of the oven.
Share and enjoy!
Related articles
- Tips for Great S’more Moments (abeautifulmess.com)
- Fireless S’mores (cityinajar.com)
- Give me s’mores… Obama’s favourite treat comes to London (standard.co.uk)
Small Kitchen Chronicles 
Love your creative and unique s’more fillings! These sound so fun and I never would’ve thought to add some of them… like ginger or coffee grounds!
Also love the idea of FLFF – looking forward to the series! 🙂
Why, thank you so much, Leah, on both accounts! =)
Yummy! Drool!!
I’ll beam some over! =)
Until a couple of months ago, I had no idea what they were. Then, one day my daughter came home from school asking for them. I didn’t even get how to spell their name correctly. Now, I finally got it and the recipe too! 🙂 You will make my little girl happy tonight. Thank you.
Aww, that’s wonderful, Francesca, my pleasure! =)
Hi Christina –lovely idea on the Food Love First Fridays! And those S’mores looks deeelish! And while I’m here –I thought I let you know that I recently stumbled upon a blog by Mimi Thorisson called Manger. Her blog is absolutely gorgeous. Her Photographer husband takes all the pictures in her blog. She’s got some wonderful stories and recipes.
http://mimithorisson.com/
Hi Anne!
Thank you, thank you! And thanks so much for the link to Mimi’s site — I took a quick trip over there to take a look and it was lovely! I’ll scoot back on over and browse some more again soon. Thank you so much for the suggestion — and please, do keep ’em coming 😉
Have a wonderful Thursday, Anne; talk again soon!
O buddy, those smores look amazing! Kudos on the recipe! Great lion pic too!
Thanks, brother wonderful … times three! Love you, and can’t wait to see you on Saturday!
Hugs!
=)
Christina, These look great! I love all of the combos you came up with, so fun. And can I just say, I am soooo excited for your new Food Love First Fridays!!!! Awesome idea, I can’t wait to see what inspires you!
(I do something called “Lil’ First Friday” over at Mommy Brainer, where I feature a children’s artist each month. I’d love to throw a link up to your First Friday posts…Art and food, always a good combo!)
Talk soon!
Rebekah
P.S. love the lions, I’m a Leo and so is my son 🙂 (he’s actually a cusp baby born on the last day of the Leo cycle…but he’s still me little cub 🙂
Thanks, Rebekah!
And re: FLFF, I am actually working on the first post as we speak … boy, will I be burning the midnight oil tonight! lol
And thank you for wanting to throw a link up to my First Friday posts on Mommy Brainer — lady, you are just too wonderful! I so appreciate the support =) Thank you, dear one!
And so glad you liked the lions (cute, weren’t they?) — your comment re: your little cub made me smile =)
Have a great day, Rebekah, and “see you” tomorrow!
xo
I remember eating s’mores as a child on holiday every year in the states and rambling about them to my friends at school back in the UK and always getting a ‘whatttt?’ kind of look from people who have never tasted these delicious decadent treats. I love your ‘grown up’ s’more flavours – definitely something to try. If I can find graham crackers!!
You know, that’s what I’ve heard from a lot of people! Can you imagine?! I guess we can! lol
Well, know that I’ll be sending out lots of graham cracker locating vibes for you, thingstastebetter, because I think you’ll really enjoy these “grown up” ones =) Thanks for stopping by and for sharing and, of course, for the love!
Warmest to you!
Um YUM I actually tried making homemade red velvet graham crackers the other day and they didn’t go so well. So I made s’mores with them by melting marshmallows and chocolate in the microwave, but I felt so dirty because my mom always tells me that the microwave is bad for you (we actually did measure the electromagnetic waves coming from our microwave once and you have to stand like five feet away to get out of range!! Don’t stand next to the microwave!!). I only microwave out of desperation!
Anyhoo, oven baked s’mores sound eeeons better. Yum yum. And I’m excited for your new series, woohoo!!
Ha! Funny that you mention the microwave story because my mom used to do the same thing =)
Thanks for stopping by, lovely! I’m excited to launch the new series!
Nice idea for the Food Love Fridays! And whoa, a whole list of nice ideas for making amazing-sounding s’mores… especially the crystallized ginger– I’m totally going to try that!
Thanks so much, Allison, I appreciate that!
And, yes, please do, and stop back on by and let me know how you liked ’em!
=)
They’re just perfect!
Wonderful! Thank you, Maya!
Hi Christina–
The s’mores look delicious! Wish I had a scratch ‘n’ sniff computer screen. . .
My kids hate camping, but they love s’mores, so we have our “campfire” at the gas stove and toast our marshmallows on bamboo sticks over the open flame. (No worries–we supervise the kids and use really long sticks.) One of our favorite combos is chocolate graham crackers with peanut butter and/or Nutella topped with toasted marshmallows. We’ll have to try some of your s’mores ideas the next time we have our cookout.
Ooh, chocolate graham crackers and peanut butter and/or Nutella — genius! What an awesome idea — great combos! Thanks for sharing, Rose, I KNOW I will be trying those next time I make them =)
Here’s another thought … how about regular graham crackers with peanut butter and sliced bananas as a S’more combo? I think I just blew my mind!
=)
I love the idea of baking these in the oven! I made s’mores for the first time recently and heated the marshmallows with a blowtorch before sandwiching them together with the chocolate and Graham crackers. They were lovely but I was disappointed that the chocolate didn’t melt! Does this method melt the chocolate?
Look at you melting marshmallows with blow torches! I am impressed, lol!
Yes, this method absolutely melts the chocolate … but my husband and I have discovered that the downside to all this melt-y yumminess is that it does get mess-y! And a bit hot too. Just make sure to let the finished s’mores sit for a few minutes and eat over a plate to catch the drips and you should be good to go =)
Aw yum! I have never eaten a s’more (they don’t even exist in Australia) but I’ve read so many American recipes… argh, I think I’ll need to make some this time around! One question… there’s no such thing as a graham cracker over here, so… do you ever substitute any other type of biscuits? I’m thinking that either wheat or oat crackers would be similar… possibly? Can’t wait to try these little sandwiches of wonderment! I’m definitely going for the orange zest version! xx
Hi Laura!
So nice to hear from you, lovely =)
To answer your question, one never usually substitutes any other type of biscuits for graham crackers however, if you don’t have grahams over in Australia and would still like to make s’mores, I would say any light, crunchy biscuits that have a hint of molasses in them could do. Graham crackers possess much of their unique taste due to the graham flour in them, and though there are recipes around to make graham crackers, I personally think they’d be way too much work.
SO, I’d say, try any light, crunchy biscuit that has a hint of molasses in them. Though it won’t be exactly an authentic s’more experience, you might find you’ve created a uniquely Australian, equally-tasty version! Let me know how the substitution went! I’m super curious! 😉
Oh, and when making the s’mores, note that they will be super messy, gooey eating! So if you prefer less of a mess, add the chocolate chips after the s’mores come out of the oven.
Enjoy, Laura, and let me know if you have any other questions =)
xo!
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