It was an unintended consequence of preparing my favorite chocolate dessert on the grill.
That dish combined two American classics—chocolate brownies and s’mores.
OK, technically, only one of them required live fire, but my goal was to bring them together on the grill.
The s’more dates back more than a century, making its first appearance in a Girl Scout handbook in the early 1900s. You make it, of course, by toasting a marshmallow at the end of a stick over a campfire, then sandwiching it with Hershey bar between two graham crackers. The hot marshmallow melts the chocolate, while the cracker gives you crunch in each bite. A gooey mess ensues.
Chocolate Brownie S’mores Recipe
My first rendition—published in my book BBQ USA—took the s’more uptown, replacing the graham crackers with homemade chocolate chip cookies, and the sugary Hershey bar with super-premium bittersweet chocolate. I hope I don’t need to tell you that the marshmallows were homemade too.
A subsequent version used my hometown’s famous chocolate tops (I was raised in Baltimore), enhancing the chocolate (again dark and bittersweet) with candied ginger and orange rind.
But how cool would it be to use a chocolate brownie as a base, flavoring the chocolate with crème de menthe and slivered fresh mint leaves. I’d cook it and serve it on a salt slab (this was the year that just about every dessert came finished with salt), turning a single serve campfire treat into a dessert you could share at the table.
The brownies came flavored with Guinness Stout (you’ll find the recipe in my book Man Made Meals). The marshmallows were equally homemade. In case you’re wondering, to make marshmallows, see the recipe here.
An Explosive Dessert
I heated the salt slab gradually, as recommended by the manufacturer. “Gradually” was dictated by technique as well as the weather, for the temperature during the taping had dropped to 42 degrees.
The cameras were rolling. I lifted the grill lid. The cold air hit the hot salt slab, causing it to explode like a rock through a shop window. The sound resounded like a rifle shot, sending sharp shards of salt slab across the set. Miraculously, no one was hurt, not even me.
As it turned out, salt slab brownie s’mores were to be the last scene of the final show of the series. The crew was exhausted, and we had run out of shooting days. We needed a dessert then and there to finish the shoot.
So, I grabbed a cedar plank, charred one side over the fire, and assembled the chocolate brownie s’more on it.
I put it back on the grill, lowered the lid, and 8 minutes later the marshmallow was browned and bubbling, the dark chocolate oozy and melted, with the beguiling scent of warm mint. The charred cedar added a smoky aroma that beat the pants off the original salt slab.
And that, my friends, is how salt slab chocolate brownie s’mores became cedar plank chocolate brownie s’mores, and how a very tired TV crew finished the segment, the show, and the season.
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