New S’mores
As the story goes in McMenamin family lore, my little brother was three and I was eight, and my parents asked me to get him a glass of milk from the kitchen in the middle of — wait for it — Dallas! Gasp. I know. I was highly annoyed as I should be so I quickly filled a glass with water and told him it was something called “New Milk.” He accepted this new reality with good nature and toddled back to the family room with me. Sweet Patrick. Today’s tip isn’t as evil as I was, but it will make s’mores something “new” you can always serve to rave reviews.
As a Classic, I’m always mired in routine and doing things the way they have always been done. One eats s’mores while sitting around a campfire. Period. Then the 90’s brought the mini steno stove into acceptance as a quasi performance-art s’mores dessert piece. This is great at a restaurant but most of us don’t have steno stoves on hand. While you can always try your stove top, we tried this and the output is slow, not to mention cleaning up a massive mess or the trouble with electric.
We discovered this tip on a Summer visit to Cleveland when a bad summer storm took out the power when there were a slew of us staying there. We had no electricity and no stove for a couple of days so we went through the cold cuts. When it came time for dessert, we decided to roast marshmallows over the plethora of candles on the table. Unfortunately the output was way too slow for the hungry masses. Then a light bulb came on, THE GRILL!! Duh. So, we set about out grilling marshmallows. Output was much higher than the candles and everyone got a s’more in relatively short order.
But, the real tip wasn’t discovered until the electricity came back on. Once you get a taste of a s’more, well y’know, you want MORE. But lighting up the grill was all such a process. Like getting milk during Dallas. We were all forlorn until Katie, an Organic Freedom, discovered — wait for it — the microwave! Yes, you read it here first, last or second: You can make s’mores en masse anywhere you’ve got a microwave and electricity and the chocolate actually melts better and more uniformily on a microwaved marshmallow. Trust me, it’ll be a hit at your next party. Purists be damned.
New Smores
- Honeymaid Graham Crackers
- Hershey Bars
- Marshmallows
Plop down a bunch of one half graham crackers onto a microwavable serving plate, then place a portion of a Hershey’s Bar on each — I like to use 3 rectangles per graham cracker, and one marshmallow on each. Obviously how long to cook them depends on your microwave’s wattage. So on your first batch, be conservative and do max 6-7 seconds. You want to stop right before the marshmellows fall over and before the chocolate is too melty. It’s super quick. Take them out and immediately cap them with the other half of the graham cracker. Voila — the best oozy gooey dessert ever.