S'more

Today is the first day of school in the Hewbert household. What better day to start a fresh project? After more than a year of pulling my hair out about what to do with myself following so many years as a baker and pastry chef, I've decided to share my passion for testing recipes here. 

I'm not the kind of person that makes the same things over and over again. Of course my family and I have favorites, but there are simply too many things in the world to try, and I am my happiest when researching the possibilities and experimenting. My hope is that I can share things with you that you might also want to try, or that you can at least enjoy vicariously. Today's post may lean toward the latter for some.

About a month ago, my boy and I watched this video of pastry chef and Cronut inventor, Dominique Ansel. Those that have attended my precious, only child's birthday parties know that I tend to go a little overboard in one way or another, and making these seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to carry on that ridiculous tradition.

There are a couple of things that make this recipe a little challenging for the home cook. First, you have to find feuilletine, crushed up, wafer-thin butter biscuits. They generally come in 5 lb. bags and are not cheap. This is a specialty item often found in the kitchens of patisseries and chocolatiers. (Chef David Chang likes to eat them in a bowl with milk, a decadent morning cereal, indeed. I won't pretend that the thought didn't cross my mind.) I didn't experiment, but I imagine you could use crushed up corn flakes, or even cocoa krispies to good effect. Feuilletine can be found on Amazon. Second, you need to have a mold in which to pipe the freshly-made marshmallow. I used 3x3" square pastry rings. These are straight-molds with no top or bottom. You'll see smaller rectangular ones in the video above. They're a fun thing to have in your kitchen if you're a pastry person, but they certainly can be handy in the savory kitchen as well. I got mine at the local restaurant supply for about $3.50 each.

My main diversion from Ansel's s'more is the use of chocolate ice cream. I don't have the equipment in my home kitchen to coat the feuilletine in chocolate, so I made the ice cream the chocolate part of the s'more. You might experiment with other ways to incorporate that essential part of the s'more, like dipping the ice cream block in melted chocolate before encasing it in the marshmallow.

Frozen S'mores

adapted from Dominique Ansel

1 pint chocolate ice cream of your choice (I used Haagen Dazs)

1 1/2 cups feuilletine (or corn flakes, or cocoa krispies)

3 packages unflavored gelatin

1 cup cold water, divided

12 oz. granulated sugar

1 cup corn syrup

1/4 tsp. kosher salt

1 tsp. vanilla extract, or 1/2 bean scraped

Soften the ice cream slightly and, using a spatula and an ice cube tray, portion the ice cream into small rectangular blocks. Put into the freezer to firm up. Once firm, remove cubes (you may have to set the tray in warm water for a minute to facilitate sliding the ice cream blocks out of the mold), and roll them in the feuilletine or crispy flakes of your choice. Place the coated blocks on a plate or cookie sheet and return them to the freezer while you make your marshmallow.

To make the marshmallow, place half a  cup of the water in the bottom of your mixing bowl (I used a stand mixer, but hand mixers work just fine), and sprinkle the gelatin over the top of the water. Leave the gelatin to absorb the water while you heat the sugar. Place the other half cup of water in a medium sauce pan with your sugar, corn syrup, and salt. Bring to a boil and cook until your candy thermometer reads 238F. With the mixer running on low, pour the melted sugar into the gelatin, increasing the speed to high once the sugar is all added. The mixture will be slightly yellowish and runny. Don't fear, things will start to look marshmallowy in just a couple of minutes. Continue to mix for about 12 minutes. The marshmallow will be glossy, thick, and white, and will probably be mostly wrapped around the whisk of your mixer.

Pack your warm marshmallow mixture into a pastry bag and, with a wide round tip, pipe a layer about a 1/2-inch thick in the bottom of your well-greased molds. Take your crunchy ice cream blocks and press them firmly, but not all the way down to the bottom of your molds. (note: if you are making s'mores as big as mine, you may need to put two ice cream blocks into each mold.) This will allow for a marshmallowy bottom, and will force some of that bottom marshmallow up the sides of the mold. Make sure that the ice cream is slightly below the rim of the top of the molds. Pipe a little more marshmallow on top of each ice cream block and smooth the top flush with the sides of the mold so that you have a perfectly square, smooth top. Return the molds to the freezer for at least 2 hours.

When you are ready to serve the s'mores, push them out of their molds (this should be relatively simple if you greased your molds and allowed enough time for the marshmallow to solidify in the freezer.) Insert a stick into each s'more and use a propane torch to gently brown each one. The marshmallow is an amazing insulator, so you don't have to worry too much about the ice cream within. Serve and enjoy!

Makes 6 very large frozen s'mores bars.