Have you ever been scrolling through Pinterest, minding your own business, and suddenly you see a recipe and you think, “Wow, that looks great! Surely I could make that!” or “There’s no physical way on this earth that anyone who didn’t attend culinary school could even come close to creating that dish.” or even “That is either the tastiest thing of all time or the most disgustingly overwhelming meal anyone has ever put in their mouth.” Well hey so have I! And I’ve decided to set out on a quest to put to rest all of our curious minds by foraging through Pinterest’s explore page once a month in search of the most Pinterest-y recipe to test.
This month I’ve dove in head first with a summer classic – s’mores. As college students, not all of us have access to fire, so how do we create the gooey, heartwarming throwback to our childhood? BOY, does Pinterest have the answer for us! “The Girl Who Ate Everything” has given us a recipe for ‘S’mores Bars,’ a similarly handheld twist on the dessert we all crave.
Ingredients
In terms of what this recipe actually called for, I had the majority of the things needed at home, and anything I needed was easy to grab after one (or two) quick runs to Smith’s. Simplicity is definitely preferred for desserts that are, in one way or another, out of the classic mold. Plus, for a twist on a dessert that is 3 ingredients, I would hope it didn’t call for something extravagant.
The Process
Overall, the baking process was easy, while still being fun. The base (and top) of the bars was essentially a chocolate chip cookie dough, but replacing the chocolate chips with crumbled graham crackers. I don’t have any kind of electric mixer, so I creamed my butter and sugar together by hand, which just meant I could skip my arm workout the next day.
One of the difficulties with this recipe was the calling for ¾ cup of graham cracker crumbs. Now, I couldn’t find any pre-packaged graham cracker crumbs, so it resulted in me crumbling graham crackers by hand and trying to figure out the best way to measure out the crumbs. This ended up basically being each graham cracker producing ¼ cup of crumbs. I tried to leave some bigger chunks of graham cracker to add some different textures, but unfortunately, it didn’t quite end up after baking the bars.
Constructing the layers was a bit of a procedure – the recipe requested that I attempt to keep the chocolate bars in a single layer, but in an 8×8 curved pan that was… not possible. Luckily, the melting of the chocolate meant that my struggle didn’t really matter. Placing the marshmallow fluff on top of the chocolate was difficult, especially at first. However, once I coated my spatula in cooking spray it got a lot easier. I didn’t quite know how to measure out the marshmallow fluff, so I ended up just using the entire tin (which was 6 tablespoons more than I needed, but who doesn’t want more marshmallow?).
My layers weren’t quite even, and I did end up cutting the bars a bit early than I should have (look, I’m impatient, okay?), but overall the baking process of the bars was fairly easy, and incredibly enjoyable!
The Reviews
I had 3 taste-testers (my roommates), and their first reactions were… varied to say the least. Some direct quotes for you:
“Okay… That’s a little delicious…”
“If you took a s’more and took it down to its essence and turned it up to 100, that’s what these are like.”
“It was really tasty, but… It’s rough, it’s really sweet.”
“I need water. So much water.”
“It’s like… pure sugar.”
Overall, they definitely found the bars to be a little too sweet and rich. However, after putting them in the fridge for a day and letting them set, they all agreed they were much better cold than hot (which, you know, is probably my bad).
My Takeaway
S’mores bars were, overall, a hit! Easy to make, ingredients were easy to find, and it was tasty! I think cutting the bars smaller and letting them cool a bit longer would be the steps I would take to improve my personal s’mores bars. So, for more Pinterest wins (or fails, or in-betweens), keep up with Pin to Pan and my slowly improving kitchen appliances.