S'mores from Scratch!

My OCD (a severe aversion to anything perceived to be dirty) does not approve of camping. I've only been twice in my entire life. I was a kid and my need for cleanliness had not yet manifested into a lifelong love of soap and hand sanitizer. However, it still presented itself as a rather traumatic experience, due to the lack of plumbing, central heating, and cable television.

Although, I do have one positive memory: making s'mores around the campfire! It was the first time I had tasted one and boy, was it glorious! Three of my favorite things, all rolled up in one!

The weather has been super nice this summer, so we've been getting a lot of invitations to go camping. After declining yet another, I began to think about all the s'mores we were missing out on! So, at some point way past 10 o'clock last night, I dragged Hubby out of bed and to the grocery store...I was on a mission and no one could stop me! I embarked on a S'more Adventure that would require making everything from scratch: marshmallow, graham cracker, and all~!

So... once I was at the point of no return, I realized that it was way more complicated than I imagined. lol. But being my stubborn self, I pushed on well into the night. It turned out to be a two-part process that extended to the next day! So if you're going to follow in my footsteps and embark on this adventure, make sure you start prepping for these a day in advance!

What to do the night before:

1. Make the "Chocolate Toppers/Garnishes"

Grab some cookie cutters, paper, wax paper, tape, a cookie sheet, a marker, and some chocolate! (Bet you're thinking "what the heck?")

Trace the outline of your cookie cutters on a piece of paper. Use different sizes. I made a sheet of flower outlines!

Tape the outlined paper to a cookie sheet and cover it with wax paper. Secure the wax paper by taping it to the cookie sheet.

Melt some dark chocolate chips and pour into a ziplock bag. Snip the end of the ziplock bag to make a temporary piping bag. Pipe the chocolate onto the wax paper, outlining the cookie cutter shapes that you traced earlier.

Put into fridge to cool & harden overnight. Later, you will be able to easily peel off the chocolate and it will stay in the form of the flowers you just pipped. We will use these as "toppers/garnishes" later.

2. Make the Graham Cracker Dough

Following the Graham Cracker recipe was pretty straight forward. When you pour it out of the food processor, it will be really sticky and will look like this.

Sprinkle with flour. Kneed & shape into a one-inch thick square or rectangle. Chill in the fridge over night.

3. Make the Marshmallow Mixture

I found this great marshmallow recipe and ran with it. It's basically a sugar and unflavored gelatin mixture.

Boiling sugar water is pretty!

This is the gelatin with the boiled sugar water, before mixing. You basically just mix this sugar and gelatin bowl for about 10 minutes. Through this process, it will change both in color and texture.

At some point, the clear liquid mixture will turn white. When it does, this is the time to add coloring, if you want a colorful marshmallow. I opted for blue!

When it's done, after about 10 minutes of whipping, it will have a viscous and smooth texture. Line a pan with wax paper, pour in the marshmallow batter and chill in the fridge overnight.

What to do the next day:

1. Prepare & Bake the Graham Cracker

I recently got a pack of these cute silicone rings, called "dough planners." You put one on each end of your rolling pin and it gives you a perfectly even dough when you roll it out! The rings have different thicknesses that will give you a range of different dough thicknesses, depending on what your needs are. I used the grey ones, which gives you a 1/8 inch cookie dough.

I also purchased a non-stick silicone rolling pin! I've always wanted one to go with my non-stick pastry mat. This way, the dough won't stick to any surface! I was super excited to try out both of these new things! =)

I rolled out the dough and used the same cookie cutters I used last night, varying in size.

Place on a cookie sheet and use a fork to poke a few holes in them.

Bake on the very top rack for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. They turned out really pretty! And they smelled delicious!

After waiting for them to cool, I busted out the chocolate chips once again. You can never have too much chocolate. Or purses. (hmm, perhaps I should start a purse blog as well...)

Melt the dark chocolate chips like before, and put into a zip lock bag. Pipe chocolate onto the cooled graham crackers, in pretty designs. =)

2. Cut the Marshmallow

Grab the marshmallow pan, peel the sheet of marshmallow off of the pan and put onto a plate.

Use the same cookie cutters as before, varying in size, and to cut shapes into the marshmallow.

Grab the "toppers/garnishes" we made the night before and peel them off of the wax paper gently. Place them on top of the marshmallows.

3. Assemble into cute S'mores!

This was perhaps one of my more crazy undertakings, but it was sooo fun! And they're much prettier than anything you can make in the wilderness with nothing but sticks and a giant, burning fire! =) I like things that are clean...and aesthetically pleasing. lol.

Give these a try! They're pretty and delicious. The best part: you don't have to go camping to make them!

Blueberry Tart

I've always wanted to try my hand at tarts! They're just so pretty, if nothing else! I love the beautiful scalloped edges and the concept of a delicate pastry shell functioning as a fruit bowl.

Jerr casually mentioned the other day that tarts aren't very different from pies. And since then, I've obsessed over finding the perfect recipe and tart pan. Now that I'm pretty confident in my pie baking skills, I thought I'd move onto something that's seemingly more difficult. Baby steps, right?

I'm slightly ashamed that I didn't know this before...but while shopping for tart pans, I realized that most of them conveniently had bottoms that popped out, making it super easy for removal! This was something that I had worried about, that kept me from attempting it sooner. The scalloped edges seemed so delicate and I was convinced that I would break the pastry before I could get it out in one piece. But apparently the Baking Gods thought of everything when they created this perfect, user-friendly piece! But just to be on the safe side, I took extra precaution by getting a non-stick one (the Baking Gods can only do so much when up against my clumsiness).

Ok anyway, enough babbling. Here's documentation of my tart baking adventure:
The dough is pretty straight-forward and "easy to understand," once you've worked with pie dough. The two are quite similar in texture and you work with them in the same way. The tart dough was maybe a taaaad less fragile. (Refer to these two posts for tips: Blueberry Pie and All About Pies.)

Form into a ball to refrigerate. The recipe said to chill for 30 mins, but that was definitely not enough time! Even with my non-stick mat, the dough was too warm and difficult to lift off without breaking. I'd say chill for at least 1-2 hrs.

Next, roll out the dough and press it into the tart pan. Pretty easy, if you've chilled it sufficiently. If you find it to be too difficult to work with, roll it back up and stick it in the fridge for longer.

Before baking, cover the pie crust with wax paper or foil and pour a bag of beans or pie weights into the pan. I've been meaning to get a jar of ceramic pie weights, but haven't gotten around to it.

So I used beans. This step is necessary because it keeps the crust from blistering or producing air bubbles while baking. Also, the ceramic ones are nice because it allows the crust to bake evenly.


After baking with the beans for 5 minutes, remove them and poke the crust with a fork before putting it back into the oven. Poking it also makes sure it doesn't puff up and break your crust.



The crust came out a perfect golden brown...






...and I had no trouble popping it out of the pan! Thank you, Baking Gods!



Next, onto the filling! It was pretty straight-forward and the instructions were easy to follow. It turned out to be a pretty, soft yellow color, with the consistency of vanilla pudding.


The recipe said to refrigerate the filling before spreading it into the tart crust. However, when I pulled it out of the fridge, it had become super solidified and difficult to spread (think play-dough consistency). But I was able to thin it out by mixing 1 Tbsp of cream (or milk) at a time, until it thinned out enough to spread. About 2-3 Tbsp total.




It was pretty easy to spread once the cream was well mixed.





In the recipe, they used a mixture of berries, but since I've been on this summer-induced blueberry craze... =)



Spread the blueberries over the tart filling. I like a lot of berries on my tarts, so I piled it on until it practically overflowed!

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and here you have it:

This recipe was fantastic! My family went crazy for it and it disappeared within a few hours. The filling was especially great! It had a custard-like consistency and was light on the palate...not too sweet, but just sweet enough. The dough wasn't especially heavy and buttery like pie crusts are, which added to the lightness. In the summer, when I crave sweets, I usually want something on the lighter side. This was the perfect kind of dessert for those hot summer days! The sweetness of the berries was the highlight of this treat!

Hazelnut Mascarpone Frosting

I experimented in the kitchen for about four hours to come up with this recipe. It was for Kevin's birthday, so I knew I wanted to do something special and unique.

I had this idea of creating a creamy hazelnut flavored mascarpone-base frosting. I had been thinking about the components of it for the past month but never got around to trying it. I knew it was going to be fantastic, so Kevin's birthday seemed like the perfect occasion to finally put my thoughts down on paper. (In the form of a recipe, no less!)

Mascarpone cheese has a rich and creamy taste, but not rich in the sense that it would be heavy on the palate. It's quite light and refreshing. It is similar cream cheese, but a lot higher in quality and has an incredibly silky smooth texture. Perfect for a summer treat!

Combine and mix well:
8 0z (1 container) Marscarpone Cheese - At room temperature
7 TBSP Butter - At room temperature
4 TBSP Heavy Cream
1 Cup Powdered Sugar
1/2 Cup Nutella

Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

You get this beautiful & creamy hazelnut frosting. It's light, smooth, and silky! This frosting is perfect for the summer time when you're looking for something rich in flavor but not heavy on the palate.



So the frosting went fantastically well! The next part was figuring out what kind of cupcake to put it on. I knew I wanted to do something with chocolate, because chocolate and hazelnut are like PB&J- simply a great & classic flavor combination! But I didn't want an entirely chocolate cupcake because sometimes they can be heavy and overpowering. Since the delicate flavor of the frosting was supposed to be the highlight, I didn't want it to be masked by a heavy chocolate taste. Then, a light bulb went off in my head: I'll do a chocolate and vanilla swirl! I found a couple of great chocolate & vanilla cupcake recipes and went for it!


The recipe called for a semi sweet chocolate, but I used unsweetened chocolate, instead. This gave the cake a dark chocolate taste, cutting out some of the sweetness. Perfect!




Melt butter with the chocolate...





...to create a gorgeous bowl of dark chocolate syrup! Add your dry ingredients and set aside your chocolate cake batter to start on the vanilla.


The vanilla batter was smooth, fluffy, and white. It looked beautiful next to the chocolate one! Spoon in the batter, alternating between chocolate and vanilla. When finished, take a fork and run it through the cups to get swirls.



They were pretty, even without the frosting!




I put the chilled frosting into a pastry bag and pipped it on. I made a batch of mini ones because Kevin, being the diva that he was, demanded them. =) They were super cute!



The frosting was a hit! A lot of people at the party were amazed by the surprisingly unique flavor and asked about the recipe... at which point I shamelessly promoted my blog. hehe.


Next time, when I use this frosting, I will be sure to make only mini cupcakes. The highlight of this cupcake was its frosting, so with the mini ones, you can do a half cake and half frosting ratio. When eating the big ones, I felt like there was too much cake and not enough frosting! =)