More s'mores bars, please!

S'mores Bars (Photography: Ryan Mak)

This weekend my friend had a potluck/housewarming at his house. I always like to bring dessert so I chose s'mores bars. This was actually my second attempt at this recipe - the first one was a disaster. And it was my fault...I didn't follow the recipe and I used actual marshmallows instead of marshmallow fluff. They melted out too thin and created a toffee-like sugar bar thing instead of ooey, gooey s'mores.

This time I made sure to buy the marshmallow fluff (which, I realized is much more expensive than a bag of marshmallows) and it resulted in a delicious treat, very reminicent of your usual campfire s'mores. I got this recipe from Lovin' From the Oven and followed it to the letter (well, this time).

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 king-sized milk chocolate bars (e.g. Hershey's)
1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme/fluff (not melted marshmallows)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in egg and vanilla. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture and mix at a low speed until combined.
3. Divide dough in half and press half of the dough into an even layer on the bottom of the prepared pan. Place chocolate bars over dough. 2 king-sized Hershey's bars should fit perfectly side by side, but break the chocolate (if necessary) to get it to fit in a single layer no more than 1/4 inch thick. Spread chocolate with marshmallow creme or fluff. Place remaining dough in a single layer on the top of the fluff (most easily achieved by flattening the dough into small shingles and laying them together.
4. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool completely before cutting into bars. Yield: 16 bars.

I discovered that the bars were much easier to cut if after being refrigerated until solid. The recipe says it makes 16 bars, but I ended up cutting each bar in half because I found out that there would be a lot of guests attending the potluck. Overall, a very successful recipe - they came out with a distinct layers of graham cracker, marshmallow and chocolate and were delicious.