S'mores Brownies

Lizzard Loves s'mores.

The kind you make over an outdoor fire (camping, in our backyard, in a friend's backyard), the kind you make over your kitchen's gas stove, even the kind you make in the microwave ;) I love the S'mores Pie from Hoosier Mama Pie Company, and the Golden Grahams based s'mores crispy treats you can buy at Chicago Bagel Authority (or at least you could buy them there 5 years ago.....admittedly its been awhile!). I love to make a copy cat version of the S'mores crispy bars at home. I just love s'mores, mmmmkay?

So imagine my delight when I saw an Instagram post from one of my favorite food bloggers, Joy the Baker featuring Thick S'mores Brownies! What a ridiculously great idea, right??? I love thick & chewy brownies so this recipe intrigued me on more than one front.

I doubled the recipe, because, duh. When a recipe tells me it will yield a measly 9 servings, I know we can do better than that! I also don't have a 9x9 baking dish, let alone 2, so I divided my ridiculous quantity of batter between 1 8x8 dish and 1 9x11 dish, I'm no math magician, but I figured this would work out OK. I also didn't have big marshmallows - I had minis- so we went with those. 

I wasn't kidding - they COMPLETELY filled the pans

Despite some challenges (they took FOREVER to bake, likely 1.5 times as long as is listed on the recipe, they nearly overflowed my pans, the marshmallows browned waaaaaaay before the brownies were baked through) they are amazing. They are ridiculously tall (or thick), rich, chewy, and all around wonderful. Despite baking mine as long as I did, I still worried they were underbaked in the center so I stored them in the fridge to ensure I could do a decent job slicing them. The fridge is a magical place for these brownies! It helped mine stay firm enough to cut (& eat) without them falling apart. I don't typically recommend baked goods of any sort being stored in the fridge - this is a notable exception!

I love to bake, but I don't love to gain 300lbs by eating a double batch of S'mores brownies that called for 1lb of butter, 10 eggs and an insane quantity of sugar & chocolate. I love giving unexpected gifts, so this was a perfect solution to my problem!

I cut the brownies MUCH smaller than the recipe called for, my yield for the double batch far exceeded 18 - likely exceeded 36!! But as I mentioned above - they are insanely thick & rich - so I think I made the right call slicing them into relatively small pieces. I packaged some in mason jars and some in cellophane gift bags and wrote Valentine's messages on gift tags. I happily distributed to some family, friends & neighbors including  porch drop off to a friend whose baby caught this year's flu. Ugh the flu. That I do not love, particularly not this year. Do you find a huge happiness boost when you give unexpected gifts? People tend to receive them gladly without any stress because I have zero expectation that the gift would be reciprocated! And I suppose only a crazy person would frown when gifted a home baked treat ;)

I hope you try this recipe at home - I hope you binge on some brownies & gift some too! According to the recipe, these freeze quite well, so you could do that & give your future self a gift!!