S'MORE!

Just about everyone has a good s'more story. Whether you can recall nights sitting around the campfire, telling stories and roasting marshmallows, times at sleep away camp, or -- in my case -- toasting treats over the last embers of the charcoal BBQ, s'mores make for a great summer treat!

This recipe proved to be somewhat challenging since the cake had absolutely NO flour in it, only graham cracker crumbs. In fact, for the initial ingredients picture, I accidentally included flour (for those of you new to the LMC site, that green and white bucket is my flour...) The result was a dense, incredibly moist cake with some sinfully delicious marshmallow fluff frosting and chocolate ganache finish. Sound familiar? Here we go!

So, the initial ingredients -- along with the erroneously-included flour: 

Poor flour bucket...kicked out of the party early. 

First things first: get the butter and Crisco together with the sugar and beat until smooth. Then add the vanilla.

Next, add the eggs, one at a time, beating well in between each addition.

Mix the graham cracker crumbs and baking powder in a separate bowl. 

Using the alternating method, add the crumb/powder mix and the milk in thirds, beginning and ending with the dry mix.

Not gonna lie, once it was all together, it looked kind of, well...ick. 

And into the oven we go! (Please, please, please ignore the deplorable state of my oven. It's too hot to put the self cleaner cycle on and I'm too lazy to do it by hand!)

I highly recommend two 9 inch pans. I used one larger pan and the cake was so dense, it sort of caved in the middle. 

Once the cake is out of the oven, let it sit in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Then, it's time to ice this bad boy!

Get the butter and marshmallow fluff acquainted in the mixer bowl. Beat until smooth.

Add the icing sugar in half cups, mixing well after each addition. Then add the milk to soften everything up!

Now onto the ganache. This is a fancy term for chocolate melted with cream. You can adjust the thickness by how much chocolate and cream you use. For something nice and pourable, I went with 8 oz of chocolate and 3/4 cup of cream.

Heat the cream up over a double boiler until it's hot and then pour over your chopped chocolate. Let it sit for a while, then stir until smooth. It may not look like it's mixing at first, but keep stirring and you'll get a shiny bowl of goodness for your effort.

The rest, I leave up to your capable hands. Mr. LMC was getting a little impatient, so my actual assembly was less than calculated. In fact, I sort of threw it together.

But ugly cake is still tasty cake!!

Happy Baking and I hope you're all enjoying your summer :)

Crystal

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S'more Cake

CAKE:

1/2 cup shortening
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 can evaporated milk

Line two 9-in. round baking pans with parchment paper. Grease and flour the paper. In a large bowl, cream the shortening, butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Combine cracker crumbs and baking powder; add to the butter/shortening mixture alternately with milk, beating well after each addition.

Transfer to prepared pans. Bake at 350° for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely.


ICING:
3/4 cups butter, softened
1 + 1/2 cups marshmallow fluff
3 cups icing sugar
3 tbsp milk

Cream together butter and marshmallow fluff until smooth.
With mixer on low, add icing sugar half a cup at a time, scraping down sides of bowl when needed.
Add milk and mix until combined.


CHOCOLATE GANACHE:

8 oz semi-sweet chocolate
3/4 cup heavy (whipping) cream

Heat chocolate over double boiler, pour over chopped chocolate, whisk until smooth.