S'mores

Tonight, my family and I went to this fantastic local candy store. In the case at the counter, they had these really lovely s'mores (a sandwhich of graham cracker and marshmallow dipped in chocolate) for which they were charging $4 each. I looked at them closely and could tell that they were using coating chocolate, which means that the whole process is pathetcially easy. I decided to make my own instead.

On the way home, I stopped off at the local baking supply shop (which happens to be on the way to my house) and picked up a bag of milk and dark guittard a'peels. The two bags together came to $4.50. Then I grabbed a bag of marshmallows at the corner store, which cost $1, on sale. We already had Honey Maid Graham Crackers.

I threw my chocolate in a bowl and tossed it in the microwave, stopping it to stir every 45 seconds or so until it was entirely melted.


Then I broke a bunch of graham crackers in half and put them on a plate. I topped each one with a marshmallow and put it in the mircorwave for around 15 seconds, until it was soft and puffy.


I then smushed the other half of a graham cracker on top and made little sandwhiches.


I dunked each sandwhich in chocolate and then put it on foil to cool and dry.

The end result was delicious and my kids freaked. My husband was beside himself with glee. The quality of my end product was exactly equivalent to those in the candy store and I made 8 (plus some chocololate covered grahams) for a little more than the price of one. And yes, it really was as easy as I made it sound.

Fun with chocolate

For each guest at my husband's and my 10 year anniversary party, we made little boxes with a CD stuck to the inside of the lid and then three chocolates in the bottom of the box.

Ryan and I picked out the paper and recorded the song. Evan gave us the boxes and the CD-in-a-box idea.


Juliet and I made lots and lots of chocolate. Included were an Earl Grey truffle (the molded one) a Lavendar "explosion" (the rolled one), and a chocolate covered homemade marshmallow.


I think they turned out very well though tempering chocolate is contrary to my basic nature.

Homemade "Moose Munch"

My husband is a huge fan of Harry and David's Moose Munch. I'll admit, it's pretty great.

For tomorrow's Oscar party, I decided that one thing I wanted to try was making my own version of that delectable treat.

For the base (caramel popcorn) I followed this recipe from Karen DeMasco as published in Fine Cooking. (Wow, online they even have a video!)


Then I made a "salad" with equal parts of mini-marshmallows, broken bits of graham crackers, roasted almonds, and caramel popcorn. I melted some coating chocolate and dipped clumps of the goodies randomly, cooled them on aluminium foil, and mixed the clumps in with the corn.



The result is so good it might break some local laws.