S'Mores Cake

I have a confession...I am obsessed with marshmallows, espeically chocolate covered ones so naturally s'mores are one of my favorite desserts. I have been drooling over various food blogs for months and their wide variety of s'mores desserts when I decided it was finally time to make one. It was Memorial Day weekend and my sister-in-law asked me to make a dessert for their bbq, I knew it was time to roll up my sleeves and dive into a s'mores dessert. I had a ton of potential desserts to choose from but when I saw Sweet Tooth's Giant S'More Cake I knew I had found my dessert.

The dessert was delicious, but a little on the heavy side for my taste. Next time I would use less flour in the graham cracker cake to make it a bit lighter. It was described as a cookie but it had a heavy almost dense cookie bar feel to it. It tasted delicious though. The recipe seems like it may be a bit daunting but it was ridiculously easy. The cake also produces a ton of servings, we had 8 adults and 3 kids at the bbq and we ate about half the cake.


S'Mores Cake
Yield: 16 servings
Prep Time: 30 minutes     I     Bake Time: 40 minutes     I     Assembly Time: 20 minutes

For the graham cracker cookies:

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda

For the brownies:
1 box fudge brownies prepared as per the box instructions, bake in a 8x8 pan.

For the marshmallows:
2 cups of Fluff

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Start by preparing the brownies since it's nice and easy, so they will have a chance to cool while you work on other things. Don't forget that most brownies cook at 350 degrees so you'll cook time will be a little bit shorter since the oven is hotter. I usually cook brownies a little less than the  cook time so they're still gooey when you take them out since they always cook a little more while they are cooling in the pan, this results in a nice fudgy brownie.

For graham cracker cookies start by lining a 9x13" pan with parchment paper, and grease generously. I mixed everything in my Kitchen Aid stand mixer but you can use a hand mixer as well. First you will need to cream the butter, sugar and salt until it is well blended. Next add the vanilla and eggs one at a time making sure they are well blended before adding the next.

In a separate bowl mix the remaining ingredients (flour, graham cracker crumbs and baking soda) and add into the wet mixture slowly until everything is well mixed. Pour the batter into a pan and spread evenly. The batter was very thick at this point and gooey, thicker than brownie mix. If you like a heavier cake this is perfect for you. If not you can opt to use 1 less cup of flour or you can not use off the mixture and bake some of it in a separate pan for cookie bars which will result in a thinner graham cracker layer.

Bake for approximately 20-25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

Assembly:

First off before you make this cake make sure you have an appropriate size pan to serve the cake on because I didn't and had to serve it on one of my baking sheets. My husband thought that it gave the whole cake presentation a little character, maybe it did. You can decide for yourself.

To begin assembling the cake remove the graham cracker cookie bar from the pan and lay on a cutting board or your counter. Shave off some cake from all sides until you end up with a square. I did a 9x9 square because I feel like the graham cracker piece is always bigger than the chocolate on a s'more. Next you have to slice the cake in half horizontally, try to keep it as even as you can, it can be a little tricky so just take it slow and it should work out fine.

Place one layer on top of a baking sheet, then place the brownie on top of the graham cracker cookie. To add the marshmallow fluff I sprayed a rubber spatula with cooking spray which made spreading the fluff much easier. When you have a nice layer on top of the brownie pop the whole cake in the oven and turn your broiler on low. Watch the cake carefully so the marshmallow doesn't burn. You will have to transfer the cake to whatever you're serving the cake on when you remove it from the oven if you choose not to serve it on the baking sheet. Alternatively, if you have a torch you can assemble the cake on anything surface and brulee the marshmallow.

When the marshmallow is nice and toasted cover the cake with the remaining graham cracker cookie layer. As a finishing touch I used a wooden dowel to make holes in the top for an authentic graham cracker look.

*Note: I did not wait for the graham cracker cookie bars to cool completely, I waited just long enough to take them out of the pan. Same with the brownies, they stuck a little but since you've covering it with another layer of graham cracker cookie you can just mush whatever pieces break off and no one will ever know!

Recipe adapted from: Erica's Sweet Tooth