S'mores graham cracker toffee

I'm a big fan of the saying "man plans, and g-d laughs."  It's very much the story of my life.  Like take for instance B's work schedule.  Turns out he has to travel for work this week -- and he has to leave NYC the evening of my birthday.  No worries though - we'll celebrate a day or two later when he's back and well-rested!

But I digress...back to my birthday. With a pretty stressful past week and a half, my birthday really snuck up on me this year!!  Which means I've been pretty delinquent on the "birthday treats."  But fret not - while B was busy prepping for work this weekend, I got busy in the kitchen!

I started with an easy but super tasty looking treat -- S'mores "Crack" Graham Cracker Toffee.  It's a riff on the saltine "crack" that people make (and I've been dying to make, but haven't gotten around to it yet), and very similar to the matzah candy that my mom and I make for Passover every year.  Except these have graham crackers and mini marshmallows!

I made sure to cut these into small (about one inch) squares because they're super rich answer...but in the best way possible!!

S'mores Graham Cracker Toffee
From Something Swanky

Ingredients:

Approximately 1 sleeve graham crackers (I used closer to 1.5 sleeves), enough to cover the pan in one layer
1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar (I used light)
2 cups milk chocolate candy bar pieces, chopped (I used good-quality milk chocolate chips)
1 cup marshmallow bits for topping
Graham crackers crumbs, for topping

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400F.
Prepare a 10.5" by 15.5" jelly roll pan by lining it with parchment paper.
Be sure to crease the edges so that it lays flat.
Place the graham crackers on top on one layer, don't worry if there are any gaps between them.

Melt the butter in a medium sauce pan over medium-high hear.
Mix in the brown sugar.
Bring to a boil (it should definitely be bubbling around the edge, you should not have to wonder if it's boiling).
Set a timer for 3 minutes.
Allow to boil without stirring.
After 3 minutes, remove it from the heat immediately.

Pour the mixture over the crackers.
Use a spatula to gently spread the toffee over the crackers (it's OK if they get displaced a little, but try to keep them as flat as possible).

Bake for 6 minutes.
Remove from the oven.
Sprinkle the chocolate pieces on top.
Return to the oven for 1 minute.

Spread the melted chocolate evenly across the toffee with a spatula (my mini offset spatula was the best for this).
Sprinkle marshmallow bits and graham cracker crumbs on top.
Let the pan cool to room temperature for a few minutes before placing it in the fridge.
Chill for about 30 minutes, until hardened.

Break apart to serve (I used a sharp knife to cut it into squares).
Store chilled for best taste and texture.

Tip from Something Swanky: "for easier cutting/breaking, remove toffee from the refrigerator after 10 minutes (it should be partially cooled -- the chocolate should be hardened enough that it won't be disturbed by cutting, and soft enough that it's easy to cut) and cut the toffee into small squares.  Return to the refrigerator to finish cooling and harden completely."

S'mores muddy buddy snack mix

With today's high of 90 degrees in New York City, the idea of turning on my oven in my small kitchen was just not that appealing.  It was too hot.  Like, it-took-forever-to-cool-off-after-I-walked-in,-and-I-didn't-want-to-upset-the-temperature-balance-inside hot in NYC. So I went no-bake.

The secret is, I had bought all of the ingredients for this treat a few days ago. I was just waiting for the right time to make it, and today was that time!

I know I've told you before, but I was late to the muddy buddy craze. Like really late. My first foray into muddy buddies was the (insanely delicious) red velvet cookies and cream muddy buddies I made a few months ago. Being that yesterday marked the first day of summer, I figured a summery themed muddy buddy flavor would be great. And then I thought...muddy buddy snack mix!!  Sometimes I even surprise myself!

And thus, my S'mores muddy buddy snack mix was born!

The secret to these is the seasonal S'mores Oreo.  These muddy buddies started with milk chocolate and crushed S'mores Oreos. You could stop there. Honestly, no one would blame you. But then I went ahead and added milk chocolate chips, teensy marshmallows, broken up graham crackers, and a few cut up Hershey's bars to the already delicious S'mores muddy buddies, and voila, you have an addictively good summer treat!  And all without even turning on your oven!

** so here's the thing....I made the muddy buddies, and we devoured them.  I made sure to save some to make this snack mix.  So even though you get many cups of muddy buddies with this recipe, I made the snack mix using 4 cups of the muddy buddies.  If you can hold out and not continuously munch on them, you can double the snack mix recipe.  But if you're like me, make sure you save 4 cups of muddy buddies before you go to town on them ;-) **

S'mores Muddy Buddies
Adapted from this recipe

Ingredients:

6 cups Chex cereal (I used corn)
12 oz milk chocolate almond bark (I used CandiQuik)
20 S'mores Oreos
1/2 cup powdered sugar (I ended up using a little more)

Directions:

Put Chex in a large bowl.

Process the Oreos in a food processor until fine.
Set aside.

Melt CandiQuik (or almond bark) in it's tray (or a microwave safe bowl) and microwave in 30 second intervals.
Stir.
Continue microwaving and stirring every 30 seconds until completely melted.

Pour melted chocolate over cereal.
Stir carefully to coat it.

Immediately add the ground Oreos.
Toss/stir to coat.
Next, toss on the powdered sugar.
Mix until coated.

I placed mine on a wax paper lined baking sheet so that the CandiQuick could dry.  
I felt mine needed a little more powdered sugar, so I added 1 Tbsp at a time until all of the muddy buddies were coated in powdered sugar.

Allow to dry completely before making snack mix.  

**Try not to eat all of the muddy buddies during this waiting period!!**

S'mores Muddy Buddy Snack Mix

Ingredients:

4 cups s'mores muddy buddies (see recipe above)
1/2 cup jet puffed mallow bits
2 graham crackers, cut/broken into small pieces
1/4 cup milk chocolate chips (I used the large baking ones from Ghirardelli)
1 Hershey's bar, cut into small rectangles

Directions:

Place all ingredients in a bowl or large ziplock bag.
Mix.

If not eating in all one sitting, or if gifting, a mason jar makes a cute gift!

S'mores Rice Krispie treat pops

Remember when I made those heavenly toasted marshmallow Rice Krispie Treats?  The ones with the perfectly toasted marshmallows and browned butter that I intentionally made a double batch of the first time that I made them simply because I knew they just had to be that good, and they were?  Well I turned those into s'mores pops.  Because that's what I do.  (My original intention had been to coat them in melted semisweet chocolate and cover them with graham cracker crumbs, but found this way to be more whimsical).

These are super cute and would be so adorable at a BBQ or bonfire.  Or on your couch in front of the TV.....just sayin'!  Had I been created -- or brave -- enough, I would've used twigs instead of skewers for a more authentic s'mores experiences, but twigs from the ground of NYC shouldn't be anywhere near my food....or at least I believe that!

I thought this shot below was cute but I don't recommend eating them this way!

Smore's Pops

Ingredients:

One batch of Toasted Marshmallow Rice Krispie Treats
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (you could use Hershey's bars instead, for a more authentic s'mores taste)
12 graham crackers, made into crumbs
Cooking spray

Tools:

Round cookie cutter (mine is about 2.5 inches high, to make sure it was taller than the Rice Krispie treats, a small biscuit cutter would also work)
20-30 wooden skewers

Directions:

Spray round cookie cutter with some cooking spray.
Using a cookie cutter, cut out cylindrical Rice Krispie treats to make them look like marshmallows.
Cut them as close together to ensure that you can get the most cylinders.
Eat the scraps -- this is the best part!

Pulse graham crackers in food processor until they're turned into fine crumbs.
Put in a bowl and set aside.

Melt chocolate in a microwave safe bowl, at 30 second intervals, making sure not to burn it.

Place a skewer in the center of each Rice Krispie treat.
Dip each treat in melted chocolate, the immediately into graham cracker crumbs.
Place them, flat side down on a wax paper coated tray.
Continue until all treats are coated.

Allow chocolate to dry before serving.

S'mores bar

So one of the things I debated doing for B's birthday party was a S'mores bar.  See, we had unfettered access to a grill, but didn't actually plan on grilling for the party.  We were going to be a big group and I didn't want B to be stuck grilling at his birthday party, I wanted him to be able to hang out with his friends.  But when in NYC do you have access to a grill?  I wanted to find a use for it...I was going to find a use for it!!

Enter the marshmallow!  Able to be perfectly toasted over a flame when there is a flame nearby.  And then why stop at plain marshmallows?  Why not make a few flavors?  Maybe some chocolate or berry flavored ones, or cinnamon, or coffee?  The possibilities were endless!

So I started with some plain vanilla marshmallows.  B loves all things vanilla, so that was a good place to start.  Plus, they're almost identical to store-bought marshmallows, but way more delicious!  Then I started thinking of some other flavors.  I thought about some fruity flavored marshmallows, but didn't know how they'd taste toasted, or even with chocolate and sandwiched between graham crackers.  Then I decided on some chocolate marshmallows.  But I thought that maybe I could come up with another flavor.  Coffee sounded great, so I decided on those.  But then I thought back to a peanut butter and jelly marshmallow I has seen in the past, and - while I thought fruity marshmallows wouldn't work for this - I thought that peanut butter marshmallows with melted chocolate and graham crackers did sound pretty awesome.  So I made a few varieties of marshmallows (1 more than I had planned to make), then bought a few flavors of graham crackers and chocolate bars, and set them up next to the grill for a s'mores making bar!

It was a huge hit!  My favorite was a regular graham cracker-cookies n' cream chocolate bar-coffee marshmallow combination!!!