S'Moreos

Okay, so I am a little late to the party is posting on Valentine's Day :) Though in all fairness I did remember to post an actual Valentine's Day recipe early this week...oh the slow progress I make ;) Well- I may have passed out from a yummy food and chocolate related coma and now woken up at the freakish time of 1am and cannot go back to sleep :/ But to turn lemon into lemon cupcakes ;) I decided I could take this time to post before attempting to head back to bed and sleep. 

I had an absolutely wonderful Valentine's Day :) One thing to know about the hubby and I-- is that we are not fancy dinner people. In fact, I think overly fancy restaurants are pretentious and rarely live up to their food hype. I would rather go to a mom and pop hole-in-the-wall. We always try instead, to do something **low key** at home. And since we became official four years ago on February 8th, we usually celebrate our Anniversary (or we did since now we have a wedding anniversary) along with Valentine's Day.

This Valentine's Day: First I got beautiful flowers and a sweet, sweet card from the hubby. Then we had a fun dinner of Chipotle (which I asked for because I love Chipotle but try very hard not to eat out more than once a week- which I usually save for my foodie adventures with the hubby, Justin and Luke). For the hubby, I got him Cajun food from a mom and pop hole-in-the-wall that I was recommended called Hebert's Cajun (it was delicious). We finished the evening with sparkling juice, lemon cupcakes (which I got for the hubby), and cake balls (from Cake Junkie)--which I had been eager to try! And although we did not get to it, because we were both so full-- the hubby bought a little chocolate fondue pot, chocolate and strawberries to dip and enjoy! Hope you all had a wonderful day, filled with lots of love!

Any Valentine related post must include some chocolate deliciousness, unless your weird like the hubby and prefer lemon or coconut ;)! And this past weekend I made these S'more bars but instead of using graham crackers I used Oreos, and these bars included caramel. Beyond amazing! This is definitely going on my favorites list. I ate the whole 8x8 baking dish in two days, by myself! For me to eat anything I bake, is pretty rare-- much less, eating the whole darn thing. But it was an awesome guilty pleasure :)

The hubby being the much more creative "punner" than I- decided to call them S'Moreos...get it?.....and since I loved the name so much- that is what I am going with. This is a simple dessert, pretty quick to make and absolutely fantastic!

S'MOREOS

Slightly adapted from Averie Cooks

INGREDIENTS

Preheat Oven to 350F Degrees

FOR THE CRUST
6 tbsp. butter, melted (3/4 stick)
32 Oreo, finely crushed (use food processor)

FOR THE TOPPING
2 c. mini marshmallows
17 caramels, unwrapped and quartered (i.e., cut each caramel square into fourths)
1/8 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips (or more if desired. I chose more :)

*The caramels are quite chewy. If you do not like chewy you could try melting the caramel with a bit of heavy cream so they stay melted. 

DIRECTIONS

First, line a 8x8 baking dish with aluminum foil. Grease aluminum foil with butter, shortening, or cooking spray. This will help when removing bars from baking dish, to allow for cooling and easier-cleaner cutting into squares.

For the crust: In a microwave safe small bowl, melt butter on high for about 45 seconds. In a large bowl combine, by hand (using a spatula) finely crushed Oreos and melted butter. Transfer Oreo crumble to the prepped baking dish and pack it down firmly using the bottom of a flat drinking glass or spice bottle. Make sure its packed firmly, otherwise when you cut the bar, the Oreo will crumble and create a mess. Bake 10-12 minutes, until set.

For topping: after removing crust from oven, immediately sprinkle marshmallows evenly over the crust (the heat will help the marshmallows stick). Then, evenly sprinkle caramels over marshmallows. Averie noted to sprinkle in just that order--and that is what you want to do. The caramels sink below the marshmallows but do not get absorbed into the Oreo crust for this nice chewy layer. So remember, marshmallows THEN caramels. Bake for an additional 5-8 minutes, just until marshmallows begin to brown and caramels begin to melt (my bars were ready right at 6 minutes).

Finally, immediately after removing baking dish from oven, evenly sprinkle the chocolate chips, pressing down very slightly with a spatula to make it stick to the marshmallows (the heat will melt the chocolate into this amazing gooey-ness). Allow bars to set and cool slightly, about 15-20 minutes. Then grabbing the ends of the aluminum foil, lift the S'Moreo out of the baking dish and place on cooling rack. Allow bars to cool for at least two hours before cutting (this will help in clean cut bars). Wet knife with warm water for easiest cutting (that way the melty marshmallows will not stick to the knife).

Enjoy and try to not to eat it in one day (but, hey, I won't judge ;),
Chika