S'Mookie Bars

Today is match day! And although I did not apply for internship this year- it is always a pretty tense time to find out if the program you belong too had a good match rate, because I think that reflects a lot on your program. Thankfully- we had a 100% match! All three students that applied for internship matched! How exciting! I think that when it does become my turn-- I will be terrified yet excited to see where the next step in life takes me. Though, I do hope that the next stage in my life takes me back to California. I would really like to move closer to my family. Let's keep our fingers crossed! And maybe my mom, can better train me in the culinary skills of cooking Sri Lankan and Indian food- and I can share those recipes with you all!

I came home today, exhausted and with a huge sinus headache. I am not sure about you all- but when the weather changes drastically from day to day- I get these awful sinus headaches. I suffer from sinus problems in general (only since I have moved from College Station) but it gets so much worse with weather changes. Well, Texas apparently cannot make up its mind about what the weather should be and so it has gone from hot to cold to warm to freezing! And so my head has been a bouncy ball of pain! Blah! So of course I want to come home, nap and enjoy a yummy treat. What treat did I enjoy this week? S'Mookie Bars :)

I think I had withdrawals after finishing up my S'Moreos so fast! There is just something so addicting about S'Mores and I just cannot seems to get enough of them! I had already planned on making this recipe because I had some left over marshmallows from the S'Moreos plus I always have chocolate chips lying around--so I just had to pick up a few more ingredients. Well- I am glad I decided to make this sooner than later because--just like the S'Moreos-- I could not get enough of them! I decided to take a page from the hubby's book and give it a hybrid name- hence--S'Mookie Bars-- it is a S'More Cookie cut into bar shapes. 

S'MOOKIE BARS

Adapted from The Girl Who Ate Everything

INGREDIENTS

Preheat Oven to 375F Degrees

12 tbsp. butter, softened (1 1/2 sticks of butter)

1 c. brown sugar, packed

1/2 c. granulated sugar

2 large eggs, room temperature 

2 tsp. vanilla

2 1/2 c. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 c. chocolate chips

1 1/2 c. mini mashmallows

3 king size Hershey bars, broken into the small rectangular pieces

2-3 graham cracker packages

DIRECTIONS

In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with paddle attachment- cream together butter and sugars- for approximately 6-8 minutes. Then add eggs, one at a time until mixed well, followed by vanilla.In a separate bowl, mix together dry ingredients- flour and baking soda. Add dry ingredients to to wet ingredients, on low speed until just well incorporated. Lastly, add chocolate chips and mini marshmallows-mix briefly- just enough to thoroughly incorporate.

Line graham crackers either in baking dish or, as I did, on a large cookie sheet. I used my large, mega-air bake sheet. Line with 13 graham cracker sheets (total of 26 graham cracker squares). You do have to be careful, if using a cooking sheet, because the graham crackers will easily slide off. Using a cookie scoop (that is what I used) or large spoon, place a tablespoon of dough on graham crackers, one inch apart. Make sure the entire sheet is fully covered with dough scoops that are pretty close together, as you want to dough to spread into each other and completely cover the graham crackers. Press dough down slightly. 

Bake for 5 minutes--remove sheet from oven and press Hershey's bar pieces on to the top of each cookie dough scoop. You can always place more pieces or less, depending on how much chocolate flavor you want--obviously I choose more ;) Bake an additional 5-7 minutes until cookies completely spread, become thicker (puffs up) and edges begin to slightly brown. Remove and allow to completely cool. Then cut into bar shapes with a sharp knife.

Enjoy,

Chika