Super Simple S’mores Brownies

Let’s just pretend these are made of yarn, shall we?

You know, I really love layered desserts. The different textures, colors, and flavors provide interest and appeal to all the senses and they just feel a little more special. Unfortunately, this is because ultimately they are almost always more labor-intensive than a simple bar cookie, for instance, and usually I am not in the mood to separately mix two or three different layers and carefully combine them before turning around to perform triple the cleanup.

So, when I ran across the idea of making s’mores inside of a brownie, I was intrigued. I love s’mores. I love brownies. S’mores brownies seemed like a natural pairing, destined for good things.

So let’s give it a shot, shall we? You’ll need your usual brownie recipe (or a mix prepared according to package directions). I like this one. I never use any other, and since I found it I stopped buying mixes. Homemade brownies sometimes tend towards the pale and bland, but this recipe is rich and chocolaty despite being flavored with cocoa (which I always have on hand) instead of with chocolate (which I rarely do). I have literally never had these brownies fail to turn out, and I’ve tested the recipe a lot. Whatever you like, make sure it’s a recipe intended to fill an 8×8 (or 9×9) pan – the size my mother refers to simply as “a brownie pan.”

Now that our batter is ready, let’s meet our special guests.

You will need graham crackers, marshmallows (mini or regular) and some sort of chocolate. You can use bars, chips, chunks – whatever you like. I’m using Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate chips…because it’s special, that’s why.

Now, I used a silicon baking pan, because marshmallows become exceedingly sticky when heated and cooled. If you don’t have one, you might like to line your pan with foil. Or butter it. You’re the boss.

Once your pan is sprayed or lined or buttered or what have you, put about half of your brownie batter in. Really you want only as much as it takes to nicely coat the bottom, because you could use a little extra batter at the end.

Next, take your graham crackers and cover the batter in a nice neat layer. Four and a half covered my pan perfectly.

Next comes the chocolate layer. You can make this as thin or as thick as you like, but come on. Let’s not be stingy.

After the chocolate you need a layer of marshmallows. Again, this can be as thin or as thick as you like. I only had a small bag of full-sized marshmallows, so I tore them all in half  before layering them on.

Finally, spread the remaining brownie batter over the marshmallows without disarranging the lower layers. Good luck with that.

It’s going to take longer than normal for your brownies to bake, on account of all the extra stuff we crammed into them. I usually bake mine (minus s’mores) about 17 minutes; I had to bake them about 10 extra minutes until a toothpick came out mostly clean. There’s melted chocolate in there, after all.

And the result?

Yum. Have your milk glasses ready!