I can’t claim I grew loving s’mores, the All-American campfire treat. Marshmallows were never really my thing. Chocolate? Yes! But marshmallows didn’t do it for me. Aside from that, it wasn’t like I was really the “camping type”.
Far from it. I was the total opposite of outdoorsy.
While other kids spent their summers riding bikes, playing flashlight tag, and climbing trees, I could be found inside with my nose in the latest Baby-sitter’s Club book, or organizing my Lisa Frank sticker collection, or begging to spend the weekend at my aunt’s house to help her clean because I loved her feather duster.
True story.
I’m not even sure I can recall a time that I made s’mores around a campfire, but I do remember making them in our toaster oven! Not quite the same, but good enough. Truthfully, I really just wanted the Hershey’s bar. I didn’t care about the graham crackers, or the marshmallows. The ratio was all off, in my opinion: to much marshmallow to too little chocolate, which never seemed to melt enough in relation to the warm, gooey marshmallows. The graham crackers were too hard.
#8yearoldproblems
I never really gave s’mores much thought, until last summer when I was looking for an easy, summery dessert for a cookout. I made these bars more for the guests than myself, but ended up loving them! I have since tried many variations of s’mores bars, but I always come back to this one.
S’mores Bars
From Food.com
Yields 12-16 bars
Prep time: 10 minutes, Cook time: 30 minutes
Total time: 40 minutes
Ingredients
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1/2 C butter , softened
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3/4 C sugar
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1 egg
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1 tsp vanilla extract
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1 1/3 C flour
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3/4 C graham cracker crumbs
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1 tsp baking powder
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1/4 tsp salt
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3-4 milk chocolate candy bars ((1 5/8 oz., Hershey’s recommended)
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3 C miniature marshmallows, or 3 C regular marshmallows, cut in half
Directions
- Heat oven to 350F. Line an 8×8 inch baking pan with parchment paper, and coat with non stick spray.
- In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla. Beat until blended.
- In another bowl, add flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder, and salt. Add flour mixture to butter mixture, beating until well combined.
- Add half the dough to the bottom of the baking dish, pressing down well to cover evenly. Bake for 15 minutes.\
- Arrange chocolate bars evenly over baked layer.
- Drop chocolate layer with marshmallow. “Drop” remaining dough on top of marshmallows layer, forming another “layer.”
- Bake 10-15 minutes or until just browned. Remove from oven and cool completely before cutting. They will cut easier if you let them stand overnight.
One of the joys of s’mores is the simplicity, and I like that these bars don’t stray too far from the classic. They are still quite simple to whip up and maintain the original flavor profile, just kicked up a notch. The graham cracker layer gets an upgrade thanks to a hefty dose of butter, which provides the base and a light topping for the bars. The chocolate gets its chance to shine in these, as it is not totally overpowered by the sticky, sweet marshmallows. Another bonus? These s’mores bars are much easier to eat! These babies are everything “real” s’mores wish they could be!
I love s’more bars and this recipe sure looks like a winner. Consider it bookmarked.
Liz, these look AMAZING! i’m always on the hunt for recipes with a fun twist on s’mores. i’m on a s’mores kick lately. you read my mind!
Babysitter’s Club books – my sister loved those! Never too old for S’Mores!!!
I meannnnn you really cannot go wrong with bars like this… every single ingredient in here is something I love
I’m not the outdoorsy-type, either, but I sure could eat a bunch of these. They turned out fabulous!!
Oh my word how fabulous do these look. xo
I am already dying for it to be lunch hour, and these arn’t helping.
Oh boy – these would be a HUGE hit in my home!
I was a brunt marshmallow girl. More than anything because it felt destructive and rebellious to light something on fire in front of my parents! These look so much safer and just as delicious!
I did not grow up with smores either but I do love the flavor combination. These look great!
love the name of your blog if i may say
These look so decadent! I love s’mores!!
Oh my, those bars look amazing!! And they do look easier to eat than regular s’mores
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Yumm! These look awesome! I was just looking today for an additional smores type dessert for my sons birthday! These are perfect!
Nobody could pass up a s’more… yum yum YUM!
I’m not that camping type AT ALL, but I do love a good s’more or a s’more related treat and these look awesome!
I do love camping, and I do love s’mores. And Baby Sitter’s Club? Still have my collection of them – I just can’t seem to give them up!! These bars look awesome, and way easier to eat than a s’more!
The bars look amazing and I loved the reference to the Babysitter Club books. I collected them all and I’m sure read them to my Barbies. Sounds like you and I had similar tendencies at that age.
Glad you’ve come around to the s’more!
Here in New Zealand, I have never heard of s’mores bars but now I have, I doubt I will be able to get them out of my mind. They are on the menu for this coming weekend.
Ohh, these look great! I’ve seen a ton of recipes for s’mores cookies, but I like that these are in bar form. Plus I have a bag of marshmallows I bought by accident (?! Who does that, Tara?) that I totally need to use…
Oh man! These look amazing, Liz. So delicious and decadent and totally what I’m craving lately! Great recipe.
Beautiful photos! S’mores are the best, and the bars make it easy to have them any time
I was the same as you when I was a kid – always reading in the house…the farthest I got was a little “Anastasia” tent near the door outside once in a while. ^^ This looks so simple and this is a great phoot!
I’ll make you a deal. Come on a camping trip with me, bring these squares (!), and I’ll set you up in a super warm, pillowed, fluffy, comfy tent with perfect lighting for you to read by.
um huge smores fan over here. must try these!
I love anything S’mores, these look awesome!
These look awesome. And they have a much lower risk of setting yourself on fire, win!
Oh my heavens… my girls would freak-the-heck out if I made them these! *putting them on my to do list!*
The graham cracker layer looks awesome and like it could become the base layer for so many great desserts and the other layers, choc and marshmallows…can’t go wrong with those!
Love them!
You know I just had my FIRST s’more like last weekend and am now in love! These are a must-try!!!
Ooooh, that solid chocolate layer looks so fantastic! Wonderful recipe, and it would be veeery dangerous to keep anywhere around me!
These look way better than any S’more I’ve ever made!
I wasn’t that big of a fan of s’mores as a kid either. Maybe it’s one of those flavors you grow to appreciate more as an adult, eh? =)
Can you please send ALL of these to me! Like right now!!
Oh, my goodness! I also didn’t grow up eating s’mores but learned to like them as an adult mostly because I love chocolate covered marshmallows. But this! I will be making this recipe! Booking, pinning, etc.
Wow, these look fantastic! I am not a huge s’mores fan, but I like the associated memories and making new ones around the fire:) I guess I could make these bars and eat them around the campfire!
These bars look fantastic! A definite perfect summer treat
I only like to go camping for the smores since I am also the complete opposite of the outdoorsy type but now I can just stay at home, sit on the couch, and devour these all by myself
YUM, these look great!! I love bars that will cut into nice, neat squares. And bars made from chocolate. These would actually be really fun to take camping!
OMG – a friend of mine from Canada told me about smores only a few months ago. I’d never heard of such things. I’ve never tried them myself, but I am intrigued!
These look addictive, I would love to face plant in that pile of bars and to finish all of them!!
I’m so obsessed with s’mores. And these awesome bars look like they would not disappoint!
These look awesome and make me happy that summer is almost here! Yum!
MUST
make
asap!!
This is like a grown up version of my favourite treat as a kid and I LOVED the babysitters club!!
Liz, I DID grow up loving S’mores, and these look terrific!!
Seriously…you’re in my brain. Yesterday I was hemming and hawing over what to make and it came down to s’mores brownies or PB&J brownies. PB&J won out temporarily, but I’m headed to the store today to make the S’mores renditions. These look amazing – I’m so ready for summer campfires!
Oh I love smores! I agree with you on the chocolate thing — I always added a piece on each cracker for a chocolate cookie cracker gooey marshmallowy thing. It was delicious
I will have to try these this summer!!
I love smores and these look amazing!!! Yummy!!!
S’mores are so addicting!! These look so good.
These are insanely good! I made a batch over the weekend and they were all gone by Sunday evening!
I totally grew up loving s’mores! I still love just about everything s’more except actual s’mores themselves!
Thanks for linking up! These look amazing!
Made these for Memorial Day and my family and friends went wild – in less than a day they were all gone! Thanks for the fantastic recipe
Liz you totally outdid yourself! This looks great and love all the layers of flavor and texture!
i made s’mores in cookie form, but your bar form looks so much better! yummmm gotta pin these!!
YUUUM no wonder this made food gawker! I am gawking!