Once upon a time four months ago, Vanessa over at What Geeks Eat made a S?mores bar cookie that inspired me. So I took her recipe, swapped in toasted coconut marshmallows for the regular ones, and gave it a go. Then I waited four months to blog about it, during which I spent copious amounts of time both writing a really long dissertation and avoiding writing a really long dissertation. Yeah, I?m a complicated woman. It was around that time that I realized one sort of limiting fact about Australia and making s?mores: they don?t have graham crackers. I seriously wish I knew this before I moved to the fricken country. No bacon, no breakfast sausage, no maraschino cherries, no good pens and now no graham crackers. It?s like one long, continuous bitch slap from Australia, and frankly, I don?t like it. I asked several Australian friends what a suitable substitute would be for making a S?more, and they couldn?t tell me because they had never had one. Wha? People like that actually exist, s?moreless people? I don?t want to live in such a world! But in case you are one of the s?moreless bunch, listen up: s?mores are an amazing American delicacy that involves toasting a marshmallow over a camp fire (or in a microwave, if you have to), then smooshing it together with a square of chocolate and these delicious sweet things called graham crackers. The results is a gooey, melty, chocolately, amazing mess. Even people who don?t normally get food in their hair like I do get down and dirty with this dessert, which I think adds to the appeal. It makes having food in your hair chic. Almost.
So lucky me?I got to make graham crackers from scratch. I don?t have my massive culinary school baking cookbook here in Australia with me (why do all the good cookbooks always weigh 50 pounds?), so I found this recipe. I?ve never really made graham crackers before, but I saw my friend Lynsi make some in culinary school once, and in some countries, that would make me an expert. So I figured it couldn’t be too hard. The first thing I noticed about the recipe was that it called for whole wheat flour, but the recipe my culinary school pal used called for graham flour. The blogger I got the recipe from said they tasted just fine without it, so I used whole wheat flour too (mainly because I was too lazy to scour Adelaide for an obscure ingredient).
The result was a cracker that sort of tasted like a graham cracker. Sort of. It was sweet. It was brown. It looked the part, so I made it work. Next time, I will definitely hunt down some graham flour, laziness be damned! This was a simple bar cookie, which involved smooshing crushed graham crackers, melted butter and sugar as the base, then melting chocolate and marshmallows on top. I must warn you, if you use toasted coconut marshmallows, be careful when you melt them in the oven?if you leave them too long, the coconut burns.
Even though I did not create this recipe, I had to write about it. I have been researching food blogs for my dissertation, which has really made me ponder just why the heck I like reading them so much. I think it is partly because food blogs inspire me to build onto old recipes and create new ones. Whether it is a new flavor combination or a unique use for a common ingredient, food blogs make me hungry and jealous, and that is a dangerous combination for me. It results in heavy cooking, baking and consuming, which typically is delicious. So thanks for the inspiration, Vanessa. ~LTG
