Caramel S'mores

Russell Stover

I keep feeling like packaged s'mores treats are the sad city version of a classic campfire staple. Every time I come across a s'mores anything I keep thinking to myself, what kind of sad world do I live in where I can't easily roast a marshmallow and use it to melt some chocolate between two graham crackers. It's as if modern science had just completely missed the boat on this, it's been too busy making cell phones and airplanes, and has completely missed the boat on making a s'mores treat for city folk. I'm sure if you're reading this outside of a city where you have a fire pit of some sort you're probably laughing at me.

One of the reasons I think this way when I come across packaged s'mores treats is that they never seem to hit the mark. There's something about the flavour of a freshly roasted marshmallow and freshly melted chocolate that seems impossible to package. This Caramel S'mores doesn't taste bad, but it doesn't give me any of the campfire feeling that I crave when I see the word “s'mores”. The caramel is a nice touch, and it's what makes this treat work, but everything else is just an accompaniment to this caramel.

The thing that makes this treat good is the high-quality ingredients. The chocolate tastes good, the marshmallow is fairly sticky and sweet (the way I like them) and the caramel is very good. The cookie could have been better, and might have been better if it was actually just a graham cracker, but maybe that would have broken too easily. It was a pleasant snack.

I guess what I'm saying is that for a marshmallow treat (which in general I'm not very fond of) this isn't that bad. I don't think it qualifies as s'mores because it's missing the important warm feeling and flavour you get from the real thing. It's only s'mores in that it contains the same ingredients as s'mores, but veggies and dip contain pretty much the same ingredients as a stir fry, and you wouldn't mix those two up.