S’mores Ice Cream

Smore’s Ice Cream is freaking delicious.  Summer is upon us so it’s time to enjoy a fun twist on a classic summertime dessert with S’mores Ice Cream!  When it’s 90 degrees with 70 + percent humidity, who honestly wants to sit around a hot campfire toasting S’mores?  S’mores Ice Cream gives you a refreshingly cold way to enjoy one of your favorite treats in the summer heat.

Every time I go camping I crave S’mores.  As my lungs fill with nature’s fresh air my taste buds simultaneously filled with the anticipation of gooey marshmallows, slightly melted chocolate, and crunchy graham crackers.  So good, yet so simple, whoever invented the S’more was a goddamn genius!

But here’s the thing about S’mores – I adore a good S’more but after I eat one, I can’t eat anymore.  Will someone invent a single serving S’more package so you don’t have to buy an entire bag of marshmallows, an entire box of graham crackers, and a full Hershey’s candy bar?  I don’t need the extra ingredients (or calories) so unless I’m camping with a large group of people who partake in the scrumptious dessert, the extra ingredients go to waste.  Could something please invent single serving S’mores packaging?  Seriously, take my money.

Camping is my favorite pastime.  My parents took my sister and I camping frequently when we were kids, we loved it.  I’m happy our folks instilled the love of nature into us at a young age, it’s something that’s stayed with us our entire life.  Eating S’mores was probably the best part of camping in my little pint-sized, sugar-wanting brain.

I fondly remember my family camping with the Schott family, a fun loving family who lived across the street.  Leslie Schott and I were the same age and became fast friends, we both looked forward to our families camping together when we were young.

After high school (1995) I moved away to attend college and Leslie and I lost touch.  A few years back we found each other and became Facebook friends, but Leslie isn’t super active online.  Even so, I would like her posts and pictures when I saw them.  She looked healthy and happy and that’s all I could hope for.

Fast forward to spring 2016 and I notice Leslie starts a Facebook posting frenzy!  I perused her posts and pictures to discover she embarked on an epic road trip, traveling and camping throughout the United States to see all 50 states!  I eagerly (and jealousy) liked her posts featuring stunning pictures and funny stories of her adventures.  One day I open Facebook and see a PM from Leslie telling me one of the states she was scheduled to visit was Portland!  She wanted to know if I would be around.  I immediately offered her accommodation at our house and was thrilled when she took me up on it!

Leslie arrived around 4:30 pm last Friday night.  We sat in my backyard, drinking beer, catching up and reminiscing about our childhood friendship.  When I asked Leslie what she wanted to do in Portland over the weekend she asked, Do you and Kieran want to go camping?

Fun fact, anytime you ask me if I want to go camping, I’ll probably say yes before you can finish your sentence.  This is why I’m always off doing crazy adventures, like spending the weekend at Tilly Jane (a cabin with no heat or electricity) in the dead of winter.  I automatically say yes once I hear do you want to because I’m hoping people finish their sentence with the word camping.  HA!

One of the reasons I love living in Oregon is the accessibility to camping.  Hundreds of campgrounds, some of which don’t require reservations, can be found within 60 miles (or less) of our house.  You can easily plan an impromptu camping trip on a moments notice!

On Saturday afternoon once the rain cleared, we decided the camping trip was a go.  We shopped for our camping food, packed up our camping gear, arrived at our campsite, set up, and had our fire roaring by 6pm.

Leslie and I exchanged smiles as we soaked in the surrounding nature, a happy place for the both of us.  Our smiles suddenly turned into a frown when we realized we forgot to buy ingredients for S’mores!!!!  #amateurs

Luckily we didn’t forget the whiskey, so our camping trip was still a success 😀

After realizing we forgot the marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers I thought, well, if I can’t make S’mores by a campfire I’ll go home and make S’mores ice cream instead!

And make S’mores Ice Cream I did folks.  Smore’s Ice Cream is fucking delicious.  Yes, I already mentioned that at the beginning of the post (with less profanity) but once you taste this ice cream you’ll understand why it bears repeating!

I love a campfire as much as the next camp enthusiast, but when it’s uncomfortably humid and sticky outside, I’m not interested in sitting next to a roaring campfire, I crave something cold. Smore’s ice cream allows you to enjoy the flavors of camping without having to go camping.

I used mini marshmallows in my recipe since they’re bite size and easy to eat,  but you can use whatever size you want.  I highly recommend, no matter what size marshmallow you choose, toast them before adding them to the recipe.  The toasted marshmallows amplify the S’mores flavor in the ice cream!  For toasting you can use a kitchen torch, a candle, or pop them under your broiler in your oven for a couple minutes.  The oven method might make the marshmallows look funky (they tend to puff up in the oven, then flatten out once cooled) but you won’t see them in the ice cream, so who cares!  Toasting the marshmallows over a candle is the slowest, most painstaking method, but it works if you have nothing else.

For the chocolate you can do a few different things.  Originally I made a fudge sauce with coco powder, light corn syrup, and sugar, but the taste was overwhelming salty.  I didn’t add any salt to the recipe, or so I thought.  Guess who thought she was using sugar, but ended up using salt instead?  #thisgirl

So, I royally fucked up my fudge sauce.  To improvise I melted 2 cups of milk chocolate in a double boiler.  Knowing the chocolate would harden once frozen, I added a couple tablespoons of olive oil at the end.  The chocolate still hardened once frozen but it’s wasn’t rock hard when you bit into it.  The milk chocolate was delicious in the ice cream but I think the fudge would be much softer and give a prettier ripple effect throughout the ice cream base.  I’ll post the fudge recipe too, if you use sugar instead of salt like me, it will be divine!

You might be thinking to yourself, “Why didn’t you just melt a hershey’s chocolate bar and use that?”

Simple, I’m picky.  When making recipes I try and avoid adding anything with high fructose corn syrup.  Even the graham crackers and marshmallows I purchased used natural sugars.  I actually wanted to make homemade graham crackers and marshmallows but ran out of time.  You absolutely can melt hershey’s chocolate bars and use your favorite graham crackers and marshmallows, use the type of ingredients that make you happiest!

I hope you make and enjoy this S’mores Ice Cream recipe this summer.  It’s a fun twist on a classic summer desert!

Thanks for stopping by,

Christina