By: Alice Rapacz

Ingredients:

• ½ cup unsalted butter (room temperature)
• ¾ cup packed brown sugar
• 1 large egg (room temperature)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup graham cracker crumbs (around 8 full sheets)
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 heaping cup marshmallow creme (fluff)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line an 8-inch square baking pan or 9-inch square baking pan with parchment paper and set aside.
2. In a large bowl using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and brown sugar on medium-high speed until fluffy (about 2 minutes).
3. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract until combined. (It may look curdled but that is ok) scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.
4. In a separate medium bowl mix together the flour, graham cracker crumb, baking powder, and salt.
5. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and mix on medium speed until combined.
6. In your prepared baking pan, spread ⅔ of the cookie dough onto the bottom of the pan. The dough will be sticky so do your best to evenly spread the dough in a thin layer.
7. Use a spatula to spread the marshmallow creme on top of the dough. It is very sticky so just do your best to spread it in an even layer.
8. Sprinkle the chocolate chips on top of the marshmallow creme in an even layer.
9. Using the remaining cookie dough, mold it into flat pieces and layer on top of the chocolate chips. (There won’t be enough dough to cover the whole top in a single layer, some marshmallow and chocolate chips will be exposed.)
10. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top is golden brown.
11. Remove from the oven and place the pan on a wire rack to cool completely.
12. Lift the bars out of the pan and cut into squares
13. Cover and store the leftover bars at rooms for up to 1 week.
14. Lastly, Enjoy!

Review:

The process of making the bars was very straightforward and the recipe was easy to follow. Once the dough was made the only part that was kind of hard was the assembly, only because of how sticky the dough and marshmallow creme was. I used my hands to spread out the dough, which made it easier to make sure it was spread evenly to each corner. Using a rubber spatula to spread out the marshmallow creme was a lot easier than anything else because it didn’t stick to it as much. I found that placing a few dollops of the creme on the dough before spreading it out made it much easier.

The hardest part of the whole process was waiting. The combination of the baking time and cooling time felt like forever and the smell of sweet graham cracker filled the air.

These cookie bars were so good! The inside of the cookie was soft from the marshmallow and the actual cookie itself, and the outside had the perfect amount of crunch. The sweetness from the marshmallow complemented the bitterness from the chocolate. I wasn’t sure how the marshmallow creme would bake, I didn’t know if it would get hard like other marshmallows when they are cooked for a while, but they were still soft.

These bars were so good, I made them a second time. They were the perfect way to end the night and my family loved them. I think that these would be perfect for a summer night and definitely are a better version of the classic s’more.