Indoor Smore Bar's

I love summer for the outdoor cooking.  My favorite thing about summer though is camping with my family.  We bring the dutchovens, the griddle, tin foil, and always the Marshmallow sticks.  So of course my most favorite food of the summer are Smore's.  I have loved them since I was a little girl and went on my first camping trip to Flaming Gorge. 

I want Smore's all year round though, and living in Utah I don't get to go outside for about 7-8 months of the year, so I had to come up with an "indoor" Smore's recipe.  Here is is for all of you!

Ingredients:
2 Sticks Unsalted Butter Melted
18 Plain Graham Crackers
1/4 C. Sugar
1/2 tsp. Fine Sea Salt (I just use Morton's)
3 Cups Milk Chocolate Chips (and you have to use a GOOD milk chocolate.  My favorite are the 16oz. bag of Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips.  They come in a silver and blue bag, and when they melt they are to die for!)
3 1/2 Cups Mini Marshmallows

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 

Line the bottom and sides of a 9 by 13-inch baking pan with foil or parchment paper. You want to leave about 4 inches of overhang on the 2 opposite sides. These are going to serve as your handles to remove the bars from the pan in 1 piece, so make sure that there is enough of the overhang for you to have a solid grip. Grease the foil/parchment well with softened butter. 

In your food processor, grind the graham crackers into a fine meal (you need 2 cups).  Melt your butter in the microwave. In a large bowl, combine your crumbs with the sugar, sea salt and melted butter. The mixture should look and feel like wet sand.

Set aside a heaping 1/2 cup of the crumb mixture for the topping. Evenly press the remaining crumb mixture into the bottom the lined pan. Pop your crust into the oven and bake until it is golden brown, about 12 to 15 minutes. Remove the crust from the oven and allow it to cool.


Melt the milk chocolate in a saucepan over low heat, stirring continuously until fully melted. (I do this a really simple way and I never burn my chocolate because of it.  I don't have a double boiler so I fill a saucepan with water, bring it to a boil, put my chocolate chips in a large glass bowl that is wider then the saucepan and put the glass bowl on top.  I slowly stir until all the chocolate is melted.  It's my "cheap" version of a double boiler) Do not turn up the heat to hurry this process, you must keep it on low.


Pour the melted chocolate over the cooled graham cracker crust. Spread the chocolate evenly over the crust with a butter knife. Sprinkle the marshmallows over the chocolate and press them lightly into the chocolate. Sprinkle the reserved crumb mixture over and in between the marshmallows so that you cannot see the chocolate peaking through the marshmallows.  Refrigerate until the chocolate has hardened a bit.  About 20-25min.

Preheat the Broiler.

Broil the bars 6 inches from the flame until the marshmallows are golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes.


Refrigerate the bars until the chocolate is completely hard, 2 hours or so.


To serve, grab the ends of the liner and lift the bars out of the pan in 1 piece. Move to a cutting board and cut into 24 pieces, or 12, however big you want your Smore.