Adult S'mores
My Current Favorite Impromptu Sweet Tooth Satisfier
I have a marzipan fetish. There, I said it. And some of you are saying “Huh, what?” I can sympathize. I had no idea what marzipan was/is, way back in my baking dark ages — that is, before I discovered The Great British Baking Show.
Of course, the most important thing about marzipan is not its food value. It’s that you absolutely must say it with a classy, posh, west-end London accent. Go ahead, say it with me now, gently, with class… “MOHzeePÆHN”.
Now, don’t you feel classy? You’re welcome.
Anyway, marzipan is indeed a thing. It is a no-bake, soft paste, like the filling in a sandwich cookie. And it is the easiest thing in the world to make. So Ima first tell y’all how to make it, and then I’m going to give you the single best application for it in the known universe. Yeah, you know what that is already, because I gave it away with the title and photo. But I will pretend I was smart enough to not do that, just to make this post suspenseful while I spin an entertaining tale.
So… marzipan. Here’s what you need:
A cup and a half of almond flour. I suppose this might be esoteric for some pantries, but I buy it in bulk from Sam’s Club, and always have some around. Because I like MOHzeePÆHN that much — saying it, making it, eating it, writing about it, and doing things that ought not be divulged in mixed company with it. Okay, I don’t really do that last thing — but, hey, if your priorities are skewed, what happens in your kitchen stays in your kitchen.
A cup of powdered sugar. You gotta have this, right?
A half teaspoon or so of almond extract. Questionable, but a lot of people keep some around. Or better yet, use a little amaretto.
A tablespoon or two of water. Unless you live in Saharan Africa, I know you have this.
Gather the above ingredients, toss everything but the water into a small mixing bowl, and mix it with a spoon. Then add water, one tablespoon at a time and continue mixing between each addition. You don’t need much water, just enough to bind this precious mixture into something that looks and feels like a soft dough. If you add too much water, you’re going to feel like nine year-old me felt when I added too much water to the wheel barrow with the bag of concrete mix, and my dad yelled at me. You don’t want that, trust me.
Dad: “Son of a bleep, don’t you know how to mix concrete???!!!
Me (non-verbally, lest I die): Well, no, not really, I mean, geez, I’m nine.”
Continuing… When your concoction begins to approach doughness with the spoon, finish the process by kneading lightly in your hands. Just control yourself while doing this, Francis. This is a family newsletter. Whenever you acquire the self-control to stop kneading (or whatever), place the blob on the counter or cutting board, and roll it into a log, maybe two inches in diameter. You can then roll the log into some plastic wrap, and store your precious cargo in the fridge for quite some time. But no worries about longevity — it won’t be around for long, particularly if you heed my serving suggestion.
So… Hmmm… What can a person do with a log of marzipan? I wonder. Let me think…
Well, one thing you can do is just chop off a chunk and eat it, more or less whenever you get frustrated with life, or whenever you have a cup of coffee or tea handy, whichever comes first. But I think we can all agree that this is a decidedly philistine application for something as posh-sounding as MOHzeePÆHN.
Great news! There is a better option! <Your surprise is palpable.>
I remember the first time I heard about s’mores. It was in the newspaper office in high school, where I was marginally some sort of editor, even though I didn’t do a whole heck of a lot on a monthly basis. I was more “bohemian columnist” than editor. The paper was mostly staffed by the cool kids, and I wasn’t cool. No, that sounds like sour grapes. The truth is that those kids were reasonably well-adjusted socially, and I was, well …me. But in the real world of high school, let’s face it, everybody else is always the “cool kids”, unless of course you happen to be one of the very select of select, crème de la crème cool kids — you know, the kids who actually know they’re cool. But, again, in the real world, the school newspaper office doesn’t have many of those.
Some sub-clique of the cool kids (relatively speaking) — the kids who didn’t quite know they were cool but were toying with the idea at the fringes — were talking about planning some sort of staff outing / bonding exercise. I don’t know what that was, or if it ever happened, but I do remember two things: (1) cringing at the thought of having to attend such a thing, and (2) hearing a girl named Kim talk about how great s’mores are. Because this was the first time I had ever heard of such a thing (true fact: this was also where I learned that some people refer to pizza as “zuh”), I eavesdropped intently, and picked up the gist of s’more culture. Honestly, it sounded to me like another excuse for cool guys to sidle up to cute girls near a campfire and exchange giggly, hormone-charged banter about gooey marshmallow, but whatever. I did not actually ingest a s’more until much later in life.
Here’s my point. S’mores really aren’t that good. I know, I know. Heresy. You think I’m jaded from my years as a lonely, bohemian, scraggily-bearded columnist in the office of a middle class suburban high school newspaper office. That’s probably true; I won’t deny it. But it’s also true that S’mores. Just. Aren’t. That. Good. At least not to a well-balanced adult whose general tastes have grown beyond candy corn and Count Chocula. C’mon, seriously — s’mores are gross. Even in the best case, which only happens at the Platonic Form of a Campfire, not in any earthly one, they are way, way, way too sweet. But the reality of earth-bound s’mores is that the chocolate is never melted, the marshmallow gets all over everything, the graham cracker falls apart when you inevitably press too hard, and then you find yourself a hundred yards away from the nearest sink where you might politely wash your sticky hands. Instead, you try to secretly wipe them on the lawn, where grass clippings inevitably stick to the marshmallow — at which point you’re just a bohemian doofus. It’s a good thing I didn’t go to that outing, if it ever happened.
For the adults in the room, I have a fantastically better option. Leave the kids outside near the fire to make their own stupid s’mores. You, smart person that you are, have squirrelled away a roll of marzipan in the fridge. Just steal a few of those graham crackers from your kids, lop off slices of marzipan, mold the slices to one side of the graham cracker, and cover with another cracker. When the kids start crying and yelling with burnt fingers and grassy hands and woefully unmelted chocolate, with the sad remnants of unconsumable graham cracker refuse strewn all over the fire pit, slowly close the window, block out the Jacobin riot that is developing yards away, and savor the rich, civilized delicacy that you have reserved for yourself. Then click your heels three times while saying “MOHzeePÆHN”, slowly, with conviction. It will sweep you off your feet.