S'mores Cookie Bars

Last summer, with a little coaxing from my mom, I once again offered to make dessert for anyone who wanted me to while in Chelan. Anne and Vicki both took me up on the offer, as did my immediate family. I decided to pick quick and easy recipes for the first two: since Anne and her family were making Mexican on their night, I decided on Sopapilla Cheesecake Bars while Vicki requested my recipe for pizza night - the golden Oreo fudge I'd made for Carly for her golden birthday.

For my immediate family, I decided on a more complicated recipe. The flavor was kinda easy to pick out: since it was the middle of summer, why not s'mores? I went through my s'mores board on Pinterest and eventually decided on S'mores Cookie Bars from Practically Homemade. The weekend before Chelan, I did some prep by crushing up the graham crackers and measuring out the rest of the ingredients. I divided them up into three storage containers: one for the graham cracker crumbs, one for the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder), and one for the sugars. I also packed the remaining non-perishable ingredients (marshmallows, chocolate chips, etc.) with the ingredients for the other two recipes. Once we got there, I bought stuff like eggs and butter when buying my other food for the week.

I was all set ... until I got a text from Lisa the day I was going to make these. She said that Tristan was going to take us all out for ice cream that night (which he does every year one night during Chelan), just in case it affected my dessert plans. Obviously it did but I didn't want to make Tristan feel bad (plus I look forward to that night every year) so I didn't say anything and decided to make these bars when the white chocolate chip blondies were done.

Which took a while since there were many weekends when I wasn't home for lunch on Saturdays so it took until the end of January for me to finish them. I was more than ready to get those containers out of my pantry (and the recipe removed from my bookmark bar).

S'mores Cookie Bars (source)

Ingredients

Graham Cookie layer

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs

Fudge layer

• 1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
• 12 oz. milk chocolate chips
• 3 tbsp butter
• 35-40 mini marshmallows (I ended up needing a lot more than 40)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and spray a 9x13 pan with non-stick spray.
2. In a small bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt, set aside. In a medium bowl combine butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs and vanilla until creamy. Add flour mixture and stir to combine. Add the graham cracker crumbs and combine. Press 2/3 of the graham dough into the bottom of your prepared pan, reserve the remaining 1/3 for the top (see notes).
3. Combine sweetened condensed milk, milk chocolate chips and butter in a medium microwave safe bowl and microwave for 2 minutes. Stir and add 30 second increments until the mixture is smooth. Pour over the graham layers and spread out into an even layer. Top with marshmallows. Crumble remaining 1/3 of graham dough over the top of the marshmallows.
4. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the bars are cooked through but not over baked. Remove from oven and cool completely on a cooling rack. Cut into squares and serve. Store leftovers in an airtight container for up to 5 days (see notes).

• I'm honestly not sure about the best way to do this. I thought I did a good ratio but after crumbling the graham dough over the fudge layer between the marshmallows, I still had a bunch of dough left.
• Putting them in the fridge in that container also seems to have worked. The cookie layer doesn't get too tough to eat.