It’s June. It’s hot. It’s time for camp, and that can only mean one thing: It’s also time for s’mores. I might be accused of blasphemy, but I must confess that I don’t really love traditional s’mores. Sure I take great pride in roasting my marshmallow to the perfect golden brown, but I don’t enjoy the combination of ingredients. Although they are good separately, I find them too sweet mixed together.
As a general rule, I prefer milk chocolate over dark chocolate. I know I’m supposed to prefer the dark because it’s more refined and classier, but I prefer really good milk chocolate, except when it comes to a s’more. Once you’ve had dark chocolate on a s’more, there’s no going back. Because the other ingredients are so sweet, dark chocolate brings out a contrasting depth of flavor that adds much more than a plain Hershey bar. Try the Hershey’s special dark and you’ll see what I mean.
Over the years, I’ve tried many variations—I once even had a “creative s’mores party” where I offered everything from Reese’s peanut butter cups to bananas to vanilla wafers and encouraged my guests to think outside the box. Over the course of the night, we came up with some great new options. If you haven’t already tried this, I encourage you to spend a night experimenting—it’s a fantastic way to pass time on the Fourth of July while you’re waiting for fireworks. You really can’t make a bad combination, and it makes for a fun evening.
My favorite combination of flavors always involves sweet and salty. I’ve found that most really delicious desserts have an element of salty to them. To this end, my preferred combination to date is a Dove dark chocolate square and a perfectly roasted marshmallow, sandwiched between two pretzel crisps. Blasphemous, maybe, but delicious nonetheless.
