Monday, September 15, 2008

Smore Brownies

These unbelievable brownies come from Demolition Desserts by Elizabeth Falkner. Falkner states that she approaches dessert as an art form. Indeed. By taking familiar tastes and reconfiguring them, she creates unique, ingenious, edible works. The book displays many of her plated desserts from Citizen Cake in San Francisco and a few simpler offerings as well. It includes explanations about the desserts and how they were invented, suggestions for simplifying each one, and of course, beautiful photography. It also offers ingredient amounts by weight as well as by volume. The Smore Brownies are made with homemade marshmallows, homemade graham crackers, and chunks of chocolate mixed into a rich brownie batter. I prepared the marshmallows and graham crackers on Saturday and baked the brownies on Sunday so as to spread out the tasks involved.

I had used her recipe for homemade marshmallows before, and they are too delicious for words. Homemade graham crackers are also so far beyond the manufactured type it’s difficult to explain. So, we found ourselves on Saturday night with these marshmallows, graham crackers, and some really good chocolate. By happy coincidence, we had used our grill on Saturday and there were hot coals just outside our door. What were we to do with this situation? I only wish my nieces could have visited as they are smores connoisseurs, and these were possibly the best ever smooshed together.


For the brownies, I used a 60% Callebaut chocolate which was melted and mixed into the batter and an El Rey milk chocolate that was added as chunks. I made the marshmallows a little thin this time and cut them into triangles. For the graham crackers, I broke them into small pieces to be folded into the mixture. As it bakes, the brownies puff up nicely and form a crackly top. I learned that chilling them before cutting is a good idea. The soft inner texture with the gooey marshmallows makes cutting a little challenging, but once chilled it’s much easier.

As usual, I brought the brownies to work this morning. I think they disappeared in under five minutes. It is a very rich brownie, and it’s completely irresistible.



17 comments:

  1. Oh, I love S'mores! Here's the crazy thing I've never eaten a S'mores made over an actual campfire but I love, love,love ooey gooey melty marshmallows and so have tasted or made myself different variations of S'mores.

    I have that cookbook. I don't remember seeing that recipe....I'm off to check it out again!

    BTW, great photos!!
    ~ingrid

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  2. Oh my. Uh... Oh my. Ghhaaaa... *unintelligible*

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  3. Sorry, had to take a moment there. You have taken brownies to realms unknown. I'm afraid they have now become your price of admission to the Gunter B&B. :)

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  4. Ingrid--
    Have you made any other desserts from the book?

    Bill--
    Ha! Sounds very fair!

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  5. this looks delicious. i'm supposed to be going to the gym right now but all i want to do is eat these smore brownies.

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  6. Adjns-
    fjkgns--

    Let me try again.

    LOVE LOVE LOVE.

    ...Yup, that's as coherent as you're going to get.

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  7. Wow, I can just taste the fudginess from your photos! :-)

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  8. Oh wow, those golden marshmallows on top look beyond delicious!

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  9. I have just find your blog and I love it. Brownie looks incredible and I love too much its. I try to make this one too.
    Saludos, Begoña

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  10. Better than s'more only maybe s'mores brownies!

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  11. Those look like some of the best brownies ever! I looove smores!

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  12. Nope, I haven't. This is probably crazy but I have mmmm about 135/140 cookbooks (I just ordered 2 more! Yes, I know I have a sickness!)okay, well, I read them all but I don't often make anything directly from them. What happens is SOMEONE ELSE makes something from them and then I'll try it. Such is the case here. Have you made anything else from it? I loved the drawings in the book...very cool.

    BTW, thanks for dropping by my blog!
    ~ingrid

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  13. Wow. Perhaps I need that cookbook.

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  14. yumm! you made homemade marshmallows? that's awesome!!

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