national s'mores day

According to the latest issue of "Honolulu Magazine" the 10th of August is National S'mores Day.

I didn't have a chance to make some, so I instead decided to drool over some photos of some I've made in the past.

This one is "traditional" but using dark chocolate instead.

And this one is with the addition of peanut butter.

Happy S'mores Day everyone!

pb s'mores

After posting my s'mores photos, my Flickr friend, Ebi Debi, suggested that I add a peanut butter cup to my s'mores.

Since I didn't have any in the house, I added a dollop of crunchy peanut butter instead.

Genius!

Ooey, gooey goodness. Be sure to use a spoon or your finger to get at all the "stuff" that oozes out onto the plate. (I actually did both!)

Thanks for the suggestion Ebi Debi!

s'mores

The last time I tried making s'mores, I used Japanese made graham crackers and marshmallows.

This time at the gourmet supermarket, I found Hawaii made graham crackers (for VERY pretty pennies, very!) and I also bought some mini marshmallows.

I used dark chocolate that I received from my Aunty M1, which she got from Trader Joes.

I put it under the broiler for about 5 minutes and the marshmallows came out nicely browned.

It was messy, the chocolate was oozing out of the "pores" of the cracker, as well as dripping from the sides.

It really hit the spot.

salame del cioccolato di stile giapponese

In 2006, I had this delicious salame di cioccolato, which I had found on a foodie trip to Tokyo.

That same year while reading "La Dolce Vita" by Isabel Coe, I found a recipe for it. This one used butter and sounded similar to the one I had tried. It called for amaretti cookies, hazelnuts, dried fruits, and some mixed nuts. I put it on my list of things to try but never got around to it.

Last month, while reading a Japanese blog, I found a simpler recipe for it. This one only used chocolate and "stuff" for the filling.

Here is the recipe:
120 grams (about 4 ounces) of chocolate
120 grams (about 4 ounces) of nuts, cereal whatever you want to put into your salame.
about 50 grams (about 1.7 ounces ) of powdered sugar, you could also use cocoa powder

I looked around at the gourmet supermarket, but couldn't find amaretti cookies, so I decided I would try making it "Japanesey".

This is what I did.

I bought a package of my favorite chocolate covered kaki no tane to replace the amaretti cookies.

I chopped some candied ginger and some dried apricots.

I also chopped some marshmallows and took a handful of hazelnuts out of the freezer.

For the chocolate, I melted several different dark chocolates, but all about the same percentage of 60%.

After melting the chocolate, you are supposed to pour the chocolate into a plastic bag with the filling and meld things together.

This was really messy. I threw the bag into the freezer for 20 minutes and was able to get most of the chocolate off of the bag.

Then on parchment paper, I turned the chocolate out of the bag and formed it into a log. Then put it back into the freezer for 10 minutes.

The recipe says to roll it in powdered sugar, but I decided not to.

I sliced several pieces off with a serrated knife and had it for my afternoon tea.

Delicious. I can't wait to share this with Satoshi.

p.s. I got the title from Babelfish by inputting "Japanese style chocolate salami" and translating it from English to Italian, is it correct?

Hope you have a good week!

would you like s'more?

Since I had marshmallows leftover from my rocky road experiment, I went looking for graham crackers to make s'mores.

Growing up, my brother and I would sometimes go camping with our cousins and after dinner over the slowly burning coals, we would toast some marshmallows for s'mores.

The sandwiched warm marshmallow mixing with the now melty milk chocolate and graham cracker...yum.

Though I was reluctant to try a Japanese brand, I bought some graham crackers at the neighborhood co-op.

On opening the package, I found that they were harder than the graham crackers I was used to.

Next for the "coals"....I turned on my gas stove and stuck a marshmallow on a wooden chopstick.

Gosh, I hadn't does this in ages!

Immediately I heard a "whooosh"....the marshmallow was aflame...I quickly blew on the flame to put it out.

I turned down the flame and tried to toast the marshmallow again.

Boy this was tough! After getting it slightly toasted burnt, I decided I should stop before I burned the whole marshmallow.

I put it onto the dark chocolate pieces and covered them with another cracker.

Not the same, the cracker was definitely too hard.

Oh well, at least it satisfied my sweet tooth.