Smores Brownies

My good friend Cara loves smores.  So much so that, the last time she came to visit, we made smores in the tiny kitchen of the apartment I lived in.  This was also my first experience with Sterno, but that's a story for a different day.  When making smores inside, I generally prefer to toast marshmallows over the coil of a hot stove because I don't like burned marshmallows.  Cara, on the other hand, totally enjoys the crispy texture of a blackened marshmallow. *Shudder* I haven't seen her since then, and that's a downer.

Here we are at her wedding two years ago...

Looks like a fun group, right?  We have such good times when we're all together and so I have decided that she and her lovely husband, The Daryl, should come see me. As a method of enticing her to visit again, I decided to make some sort of smores dessert.  I looked and looked and saw so many different methods of combining chocolate, marshmallow, and graham cracker that my head began to spin just a little bit.  I saw these two recipes on Tasty Kitchen and decided that, by combining the two, I would have a winner.

For the crust:
Take one package of graham crackers and crush them up.  I used the Mix'n'Chop to do this, I think you know how I feel about it already.  Add 1/2 stick of melted butter to the graham cracker crumbs and line the bottom of your brownie pan (I used a 9x12 glass pan) with them.  Bake at 350 for 5 to 8 minutes. 

For the brownies:
¾ Cups Shortening (I used butter)
1-⅓ Cup Sugar
3 Eggs
1-⅓ Cup Flour
½ teaspoons Baking Powder
2 Tablespoons Cocoa
⅓ teaspoons Salt
1-½ teaspoon Vanilla
Marshmallows
1 Cup Chocolate Chunks

Mix the brownie ingredients (shortening, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, cocoa, salt and vanilla) in the order given. Bake at 350F for 20 minutes.

Take brownies out of the oven and cover with marshmallows and chocolate chunks. The marshmallows will get puffy, so they don’t have to touch each other, but you do want the brownie covered. Put back in the oven for 3 minutes or until a toothpick/cake tester comes out clean.

In the future I'll probably just line the bottom of the pan with graham crackers.  I didn't much care for the crust, that might have something to do with how I underbaked the crust and it totally moved around when I was putting the brownie batter in the pan but we won't talk about that right now.  I will also be sure to add the chocolate chunks to the top like she suggested in the original recipe.  This version was really good, but I think those two changes would have made these AMAZING.  For serious.  So Cara, if you're reading this, make a trip back.  I promise it'll be worth it!!