Last week, I told you all about my baking marathon. This weekend, I give you the second installment: s’mores bars.

These showed up at Pickett Christmas (my mom’s side of the family Christmas Party) this year by way of my cousin Sharon, and I was addicted. They’re gooey. They’re chocolatey. They’re cookie-y. And if you eat them warm (difficult, but worth it), they capture everything you want out of a s’more.

Sharon made them gluten free, which is doable, but I didn’t feel like buying a lot of ingredients, so mine are not. Regardless, if you’re as upset as I am by the football game that just finished, you may feel at least marginally better if you go make a batch of these. And if not, just know that I also feel your pain.

Anyways, first step is to cream the sugar, brown sugar, and butter in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla extract and egg until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and graham cracker crumbs. Pour the dry ingredients into the stand mixer and beat until dough comes together. Spray an 8×8 baking pan with cooking spray and press half of the dough into the bottom in a flat layer.Break apart the Hershey’s bars and place over graham layer to cover. If there are any extra pieces, you should eat them – broken chocolate doesn’t have any calories, it’s a fact of life.Spread the fluff in a layer over the top of the chocolate.Finally, press the rest of the dough into a layer on top. Sharon recommended rolling out the dough into a sheet and putting it on, which I think would work great, but I was also being lazy. If you don’t mind oozing fluff, you can follow my lead.Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes. Allow to cool completely in pan.Again, my impatience got the best of me and I didn’t wait for the bars to cool before cutting. So mine were on the gooey side. But left overnight they actually firmed up nicely. If I was doing it again, I’d let them firm up before cutting.

Store the bars in an airtight container, maybe separated with parchment paper if you don’t want one big s’mores bar.

Enjoy!

S’mores Bars

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cups flour
• 3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 Hershey’s bars
• 1 1/2 cups marshmallow fluff

Directions:

1. Cream together the butter, brown sugar, and sugar in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on medium speed until light and fluffy.
2. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract until smooth.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the stand mixer and beat to combine.
5. Press half of the dough into the bottom of an 8×8 pan sprayed with cooking spray.
6. Arrange Hershey’s bars in a layer over the graham cookie.
7. Spread fluff over Hershey’s bars.
8. Roll remaining dough into a sheet and place on top to cover fluff.
9. Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes. Allow to cool in pan completely before cutting into bars.