Best S'mores Bars with Fluffernutter

It’s always a good time for s’mores but not always a good time for a campfire (hello, Southern California wildfire season). Best S’mores Bars with Fluffernutter are baked in the oven, no open flames needed. Plus, fluffernutter!

Fluffernutter

You either grew up eating fluffernutter sandwiches or you didn’t. I didn’t and the thought of them slightly makes my teeth ache. White bread + marshmallow fluff (aka marshmallow creme) + peanut butter = cavities. Just kidding, I meant, fluffernutter sandwiches.

These sandwiches are definitely a New England throwback to the mid-twentieth century. They were a marketing tool in the 1960s for the Marshmallow Fluff brand. The marshmallow fluff and peanut butter sandwich became popular to put in brown bags and lunch boxes.

Marshmallow fluff, also called marshmallow creme, is an ingredient in homemade candy, fruit dips, fillings, and frosting. I stocked up on several jars when I stumbled upon a sale not too long ago. Snacking cake with chocolate fluff and chocolate cake with mocha whip are two things I’ve made with those blue-lidded jars.

Peanut butter combined with marshmallow fluff in any kind of dessert is going to bring retro vibes, especially to those who remember fluffernutter from their childhood. There is no denying that the sweet and salty combo is tasty. The combination makes these bars extra yummy and gooey.

You will want some more.

S’mores

Yes, the dessert really does originate from a Girl Scout publication from 1927 where it was called “Some Mores.” Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts was a handbook for members that guided them in how to set up camp, organize their patrols, and cook for themselves, among other things.

In reading through the handbook (see it here online), I was impressed at what these young ladies in the 1920s cooked for their meals. Biscuits from scratch, fish chowder, meat kabobs, and squaw corn were just a few things on the trail menu lineup. I noticed a dish called Komac Stew, which when I read the recipe sounds a lot like Israeli shakshuka.

There was also a recipe for planked fish that involved gutting and prepping a fish to cook on a hardwood plank over an open fire. Wow. These teen girls knew their way around a campfire.

And yes, there was the infamous recipe for Some Mores. It consisted of a marshmallow roasted over hot coals until melty. It was then sandwiched between two graham crackers and a piece of chocolate where the heat from the roasted marshmallow softened the chocolate.

The original recipe ends with a directive: “Though it tastes like ‘some more’ one is really enough.” I think I hear the sound of the original mike drop.

Amazingly, the recipe has not changed in almost a century. Somewhere along the way, the name morphed to “s’mores.” They are now a staple dessert among campers and non-campers alike.

Lessons Learned

• Use whatever chocolate you’d like in this recipe. Dark chocolate is amazing in this. This time, I used 6 bars of the 1.55 oz size of Hershey’s milk chocolate bars because that is what my local grocery store had in stock. You want enough chocolate to fill the pan in a single layer.
• I like to use Adams No-Stir Natural Peanut Butter because it is just peanuts and salt with a little palm oil as a stabilizer (otherwise, natural peanut butter is too runny). Using PB without sugar helps keep the dessert from being sicky-sweet.
• For these bars to slice nicely, they need several hours of cooling time. So plan accordingly!

Hat Tips

Many thanks to several creative s’mores bar recipes all over the internet, but especially to Pinch of Yum and their Best S’mores Bars Recipe.

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