Salt Slab Brownie S’mores

August 30, 2018 by Jennifer

Labor Day is Monday, which means it’s a three-day weekend. And that means there’s time for one more party before school is back in session and work is all adults think about. Most of these parties involve backyards and barbecues, which means hot dogs and burgers. Both are easy and delicious options for this weekend, but for a party to be a real winner, you have to have dessert. Sure, you could whip up a pie or even a cake. But my personal favorite: brownies.

I love brownies. They’re easy to make, gooey, fudgey, and most important, they’re transportable. I love brownies so much in fact, I always keep an extra couple bars of unsweetened chocolate in the cupboard just so I can whip a batch whenever I’m in the mood. But I’m not the only one with a brownie recipe or two, everyone I know seems to have a brownie recipe they love. Some are plain, some have nuts, some have extra chocolate and some even have liquor in them. I’ve made them all. At least I thought I had. Then I met Steven Raichlen and that all changed.

Raichlen is a grilling king. He’s got a show on PBS (Project Smoke) and he’s learned all there is to know about grilling and smoking. He cooks with wood and charcoal, cedar planks and salt slabs. He’s made pork chops and steaks, quesadillas and pizzas… all over an open flame. I got to meet and taste several of his delicious recipes at Melissa’s Produce recently and let me tell you, they were all amazing! But my favorite? My favorite were these Brownie S’mores. I mean, I love chocolate and these have so. Much. Chocolate. It was almost like chocolate overload… almost.

But it wasn’t just the brownies that excited me… it was all the new tools that I discovered thanks to Raichlen. He recommends grill gloves so you can move stuff around without your hands getting burned. But my favorite tool, is the grate-grabber. It allows you to lift a hot grate off the grill so you can add wood chips or move the coals around. I love this tool. I never had one until I got Raichlen’s book, Project Fire, and learned all about it. While I didn’t need the grate-grabber for this recipe, I’ve used it almost every time since I bought it and it’s made grilling so much more fun! If you don’t have one, get one!

But back to the s’mores. These are awesome! If you love s’mores, then you need to make these at this weekend’s barbecue. Unlike regular s’mores which are made over an open fire while camping, these can be made right in your own backyard. You also don’t need a single graham cracker, as those brownies I mentioned earlier are the base. So how do you turn brownies into s’mores? Simple, just take that salt slab you’ve been using for your meats and fish and place those brownies right on it. Then add your favorite chocolate and a marshmallow, close your grill lid and let the magic happen.

My favorite thing about these s’mores is that the marshmallows don’t get burnt to a crisp. I don’t know about you, but whenever I roast marshmallows they seem to get seriously burned. While like that on occasion, most of the time I prefer a nice roast where the marshmallow is a golden brown and all gooey inside. Those are the kind of marshmallows you get with these s’mores, since the marshmallows are smoked rather than roasted. See, you cook the whole brownie in a covered grill with indirect heat. It’s that indirect heat that roasts the marshmallows, melts the chocolate, gives the brownie a nice smokey flavor and turns these brownies into an amazing, gooey treat worthy of any end of summer party.