S’mores Pie

You might notice something different about this post. All of the previous ones have been for cookies, or cookie-type desserts. This one is the first recipe in the category of “Pies”. First of many, hopefully.

So to get right to it, a couple of important questions. Who doesn’t love s’mores? I’m sure there are some people, but I haven’t met them yet. And who doesn’t love pie? Again, I’m sure there are some people, but I haven’t met them yet either. Why wouldn’t the two go great together?

That last question is the one I answered when I invented this recipe. I got the idea originally after talking with people about pizza. We started thinking about all the different toppings you could put on it. Eventually I came around to the idea of a s’mores pizza. Instead of pizza dough, a graham cracker crust. Instead of tomato sauce and cheese, chocolate and marshmallows.

I love inventing recipes, but why reinvent the wheel if someone has already invented it? So I looked for recipes for s’mores pizza, figuring that a great idea such as this must have been done already. Maybe it had, but I couldn’t find any evidence online. (And we all know that if there’s no evidence online, it never happened. That’s a scientific fact.)

So, I tried creating it from scratch. I made a s’mores pizza. It tasted great, but it didn’t work quite right. The crust didn’t really hold together like you would want it to. (Well, not you specifically, but anyone really in the crust-holding-together world.)

This was the attempt at making a s’mores pizza.

I could have tried reformulating the crust, but I ended up going a different route. I decided to make it a pie instead of a pizza. It was still a little crumbly, but making it into a pie made it hold together better. My guess is that using the pie dish forced it to hold a particular shape, instead of just letting it hang out on the baking sheet, all loosey-goosey. (And you know what happens once geese are involved.)

It’s actually a very simple pie to make. To summarize: start with making your favorite graham cracker crust. (I used this one this time.) I wouldn’t worry if it’s not your absolute favorite. There will be no lie detector tests involved. Then bake the crust following its  instructions. Pour in the chocolate chips and top it off with marshmallows. Bake and enjoy!

It’s not only simple, it’s also very quick. It took me 50 minutes start to finish, including prep and cleanup. It would have taken me only 40, but I forgot to preheat the oven. I should also mention it’s delicious. It’s all the flavors of s’mores, but made in handy-dandy pie form that avoids the necessity of a campfire.

The other thing I should mention is that it’s kinda messy. The melted chocolate in the middle isn’t very substantial, so it makes sense. I also think it’s okay, not only because messy desserts are fun, but because it’s sort of an homage to the original inspiration: the humble s’more. In the original, it’s the marshmallows which are usually the messiest part, but in this one it’s the chocolate. (See, it’s an homage, not a copy.)

In the future, I might want to try reworking the recipe with something a little bit more substantial for the chocolate part so it holds together better. My wife (and trusty taste-tester) suggested it might be fun if the chocolate were brownie-ish. But that’s a recipe for another time.

In the meantime, let me know what you think of this recipe, if you have any ideas to improve it, if you got a s’mores pizza to actually work, or if you figured out that whole cold fusion thing.

Ingredients:

1 graham cracker crust

1 bag of chocolate chips

120-135 grams of mini marshmallows (a little less than half a bag)

 

Instructions:

Make and bake the graham cracker crust per its instructions.

Take the crust out, but leave the oven on. Fill it (the pie, not the oven) with chocolate chips. Top it with the mini marshmallows. Use more or less depending on how big a dish you have, and how much marshmallow coverage you want. (The marshmallows will expand as they’re heated.)

Bake the pie until the marshmallows get as brown as you want. (For me it was 7 minutes at 375°.)

It’s best to cut it while still warm, as it gets harder to cut once the marshmallows cool. If serving later, it’s best to reheat it and serve it warm.

Chocolate Peppermint Snaps

Yes, this is a recipe involving peppermint. Yes, I realize that it is still October. But before you express concern that I’m trying to usher in the holiday season early by making all things peppermint, let me let you in on a little secret. I didn’t just make this recipe. It’s shocking, I know.

I had the idea for this blog last year. At that time I took notes after I baked a lot of recipes, with the idea that I would start the blog then. I didn’t get around to actually starting the blog until very recently. By that time I had baked and written notes for many things. So while the items I baked were seasonally appropriate at the time, at this point they’re out of sync. Eventually, I’ll get through my backlog, and the items should start to sync up again. But in the meantime, don’t be worried if you see pumpkin in July or strawberry in December. I’m not completely oblivious, I’m just catching up.

I came across this recipe after a little bit of research. I saw a bottle of peppermint extract in the grocery store, and I knew I had to get it. I didn’t know what I was going to make with it, but I knew it was going to be something, and that something was going to be delicious.

I started looking up various recipes with peppermint in it when suddenly I remembered something in the back of my mind called a peppermint snap. I don’t know if I had ever had one. But I knew there were ginger snaps, and I was pretty sure there were peppermint snaps as well.

When I did searches for “peppermint snaps”, what I mostly got were recipes for “peppermint schnapps”. Not exactly what I was looking for. But I eventually came across this recipe. Chocolate Peppermint Snaps. The elusive peppermint snaps I was looking for, but even better. Chocolate, check. Peppermint, check. Snap, well… check I guess. I’m not exactly sure what makes something a “snap”, but the name sounds delicious, playful. I was pretty sure I was on to something.

My wife is mostly staying away from wheat. (It’s the result of a fight, and neither side looks to be backing down.) So I’ve been making lots of recipes gluten-free. Usually it turns out fine. The last cookies I made gluten-free had a little issue. So I thought I would try these with regular flour first, to see how they turn out. Turns out there is a gluten-free version of the recipe here, which is just slightly different. I may try that next, or perhaps just use the regular version and substitute the flour. (Like I said, it usually works.)

I followed the recipe pretty closely. I ended up using twice the peppermint extract, but they hinted that you might want to add more. It’s kind of impressive to me that 2 tsps of peppermint extract flavors that many cookies. Once you approach them, you can smell the peppermint. A friend of mine had a cold when she was eating them and while she couldn’t smell much, she could definitely smell the cookies.

And while you can definitely smell the peppermint, you’re not overwhelmed by it. It’s a pleasant smell. It’s invigorating, but not overpowering. The same when eating them. You definitely taste the peppermint, but it complements the chocolate, it doesn’t overtake it.

So, I hope you enjoy them as much we did. I ended up making them a little bit bigger than they suggested, so I ended up with fewer cookies. The original recipe makes 5 dozen, and I ended up with about 4 dozen. But that was plenty to enjoy.

How did they turn out for you? How much peppermint did you use? Let me know in the comments below.

Recipe from King Arthur Flour.

Double Chocolate BBQ Potato Chip Cookies

If you read my previous post, you’ll know that I tried making these cookies already. They were what I categorize as a “delicious mistake”. They were tasty, but not quite what I intended. I decided to try them again.

Figuring the issue with the original batch was that I had used gluten-free flour (which had not failed me previously, btw), I decided to try making them with regular flour. I’m glad I did. They turned out awesome.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I’m a big fan of BBQ potato chips. While some people I spoke to thought the idea of BBQ potato chips in a cookie was a strange idea, I never  did. BBQ potato chips are tasty. Depending on the chip, they have a slightly spicy flavor and knowing that similar spicy flavors go well with chocolate, I was pretty sure these would work out well.

The chips did work out well, but not exactly how I thought they would. There was a slight BBQ chip flavor in the cookie, with just a hint of the saltiness. Some people could taste it, some people couldn’t. For me, it was just a hint, and I would have been happy with even a little bit more.

But where the BBQ chips really shined in the cookies was the texture. Some people like cookies to be soft. Some people like them to be hard, or crunchy. These cookies are the best of both worlds. The dough part of the cookie is soft and yummy. But the chips! The chips maintain their texture. And since they’re scattered throughout the dough, they provide an amazing crunch in an otherwise soft cookie.

Not to mention they look beautiful. The pieces of the chips are all irregular. They have peaks and valleys. Some curl back over themselves. Some stick straight out. Some burrow beneath the surface of the cookie. Each cookie is like a work of art. Unique. Amazing. Delicious.

I’ll also say that one of the most fun parts of making the cookies was breaking the BBQ chips by hand. This wasn’t mentioned in the recipe, but, for me at least, it was absolutely required. Given the aforementioned irregularity of the chips, if you just put in 2 cups of them, there wouldn’t have been that many. They’re big and oddly shaped, and they don’t fit that well into a measuring cup. You have to break them into smaller pieces so more will fit in.

Maybe there’s not supposed to be that many in there, and by breaking them down smaller, I actually put more in than were supposed to be in the original recipe. I don’t think that’s the case, but it’s possible. Since I like BBQ potato chips anyway, if that’s so, for me at least, the more merrier. I guess one way to solve it would be if the recipe used a measurement of weight or mass (ounces, grams, etc.) as opposed to a measurement of volume (cups). You can read more about my thoughts on measuring here.

Try out the recipe yourself, and let me know how it goes. I’m particularly interested in what kind of BBQ chips you use and whether or not you can taste the BBQ flavor in the cookies.

Recipe courtesy of the Pescetarian and the Pig.

Double Chocolate BBQ Potato Chip Cookies – Gluten-Free

Welcome to my first bonus post! For those of you who have been following this blog, you might have noticed that I’m posting once a week. But I’ve been doing a bunch of baking, and I have a lot of things to share. So this week I thought I would do a bonus post. We’ll see how it goes. And if I have more time in the future, I might do it again. What’s this bonus post about? One of my favorite things: BBQ potato chips.

I am a fan of BBQ potato chips. You might say I am a BBQ potato chip snob, or even a potato chip snob in general. Having grown up in central Pennsylvania, I had access to a lot of different potato chips, pretzels, and other snack foods, many of which you just can’t find anywhere else. Two of the best potato chip brands are Martin’s and Middleswarth. I’ll find myself looking up and down the snack foods aisle at the grocery store, unhappy with all the choices and not sure why, until I remember they just don’t have those brands where I live now. I’ve actually ordered them directly from the manufacturer and had them specially shipped here. They’re just that good. I’m not saying there aren’t other good potato chips out there, but the major brands pale in comparison.

So why all this talk about potato chips on a baking blog? Am I seriously going to tell you I put BBQ potato chips in a cookie? I mean chocolate and pretzels go together, but chocolate and BBQ potato chips? I had never even really considered it, but yes. They go great together.

How did I come up with it? As much as I’d love to take credit for it, it wasn’t my idea. I was looking for a new recipe to make a few weeks back and this one caught my eye. I’m a little bit of a sucker for BBQ potato chips, so I just had to try it.

Having none of my beloved Middleswarth or Martin’s on hand, I ended up using Deep River Mesquite BBQ chips. (Hopefully I’ll have some hometown favorites around next time I make them.) I have no particular affiliation with Deep River chips, they just happened to be in the local store. They’re different, particularly the mesquite part, but they’re good chips. They’re kettle cooked, which is the way to go with potato chips, which provides a nice crunch.

I’ve had a lot of luck making gluten-free desserts. I have a go-to gluten-free flour that I use (Trader Joe’s Gluten Free All Purpose Flour), and it has served me well. Time after time I simply substitute it for regular flour in a recipe, and voilà! Yummy, gluten-free desserts.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t one of those times. I cooked the cookies on the lower end of the recommended cooking time, but they didn’t seem quite done. So I cooked them a little bit longer. They still didn’t seem done. I eventually took them out, because I was worried I was cooking them way too long. It turns out that I should have taken them out sooner, as they overcooked. They also didn’t end up looking like the pictures in the original recipe.

They were flat, almost cracker thin, with hardly any substance to them. I’m not sure why they didn’t work out. If I had taken them out sooner, I’m not sure how much better they would have been, as they were thin at that point, too. My guess is that there was something  about the gluten that was necessary for making these cookies work.

Don’t get me wrong, they were still tasty. My wife and I ate them up. They just weren’t what we were expecting.  I vowed to make them again.

Try out the recipe, either original or gluten-free and let me know how it goes in the comments below.

Recipe courtesy of the Pescetarian and the Pig.

Millionaire’s Rice Crispy Treats

So I really enjoy making millionaire’s shortbread. I’m told it’s a Scottish dessert, and while I had already had it without realizing it was Scottish, it was a Scottish friend who helped turn me on to it. And at his request, I started making it. It’s simple, it’s fun and it’s delicious.

When I stick to the original recipe, it’s pretty foolproof. Shortbread, easy. Caramel, now that I know how to make it, easy. Melting chocolate, piece of cake. (Or, you know, chocolate.) But sometimes I like to mix it up. If a recipe is really complicated, it can be hard to change things up, as all the different components could be out of whack if you change or remove one. But if it’s straightforward to begin with, then it’s easy to imagine how you can change it.

I tried changing it too much with the peanut butter chocolate crusted millionaire’s rice crispy treats. Not only did I swap out the shortbread for rice crispy treats, I also added a crust. It was too much. So I thought I would try it again without the crust, as I think the rest of it was pretty sound.

And you know what? It was. It turned out great. Obviously the texture and taste is a little different, but it goes well together. The chocolate and the caramel go well with the rice crispies.

View from above

Those of you who have a keen eye might notice a problem with this recipe. This blog is called “Needs Baked”, and by substituting rice crispy treats for shortbread, there is no baking involved. That is technically correct, and you get bonus points for noticing. But because it’s an adaptation of a recipe I’ve already done that originally involved baking, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch. Just to be sure though, I got permission from my editor (me), who didn’t mind that I broke the rules.

One thing to note is that the original shortbread recipe calls for a smaller dish, while the rice crispy treats call for a 13 x 9 dish. Using this bigger dish means that there is a lot more surface area for the caramel and chocolate to cover, so they end up making much thinner layers. It still tastes delicious, but if you want the caramel and chocolate to have the same proportion as in the original recipe, just increase accordingly.

One other thing I’ll note is my Scottish friend’s reaction to all of this. When I first made this, I posted pictures and descriptions online. He saw them and had a one word reaction: “Heresy!”. I will agree that it is heresy. Delicious, delicious heresy.

Try it out for yourself. Do you like it as much as the original recipe? Better? Worse? Do you consider it heresy? Let me know in the comments.

Original millionaire’s shortbread recipe adapted from Allrecipes.com. Original rice crispy treats recipe from RiceKrispies.com.

Instructions:

Follow the recipe at RiceKrispies.com for making rice crispy treats. For the topping, follow my recipe for making millionaire’s shortbread, but skip the shortbread, and use the rice crispy treats instead. Voila!