Gluten Free S'Mores Recipe(s): Gluten Free Graham Crackers, Corn Syrup Free Marshmallows

S'Mores were definitely harmed in the making of this post ;)

I was trying to figure out how to do these recipes separately, but I'm sorry they just HAD to be posted together.  Why?  Because, my friends, it all comes together to make this lovely awesomeness that is oh-so-decadent and yummy!

When I was a kid we went camping CONSTANTLY, so s'mores were a normal part of our camping ritual and I loved every minute of it.  I just plain could NOT have my kids denied this pleasure just because of some annoying food allergies, so I went to work in my brain trying to come up with a way to make it happen.

You see, the commercially available gluten free graham cracker alternatives contain corn (of course), so that wasn't an option (trying to get the kids on a more gluten free diet for the sake of their allergies and tummies), so I had to be sneaky in the recipe trying to make these TASTE enough like graham crackers to trick them.  And I also wanted to make these as healthy as possible (yeah, I'm sad what can I say) and since marshmallows are just plain old whipped sugar (essentially) I figured I'd try to make up the nutrition on the cracker end.

And really, these came out really yummy.  I'm sorry for the whopping amount of fat in the recipe (8 whole tablespoons of butter, an entire stick, or of your favorite solid fat), but I messed with the recipe until the dough just plain came out RIGHT (not to mention the cracker) and that's what it took to come together.  Otherwise, though, the crackers are pretty darn healthy and I was happy that I was able to incorporate teff flour into a recipe and it worked well.  I used teff just because it just adds something to the depth of flavor in the recipe and is super good for you. If you don't have teff and have no desire to GET teff you could try using more sorghum flour in it's place, although I can't guarantee the crackers will taste as good.

So here you go folks.  The recipes you will need to make corn free and gluten free s'mores (along with egg free options too on the marshmallows :).  This post will be long, but oh so worth it!  Enjoy folks (I know I did...the s'mores were awesome that are in the picture by the way *laugh*).

Gluten Free Graham Crackers (gluten, egg, refined sugar free, dairy free option)

• 1/2 cup sorghum flour
• 1/3 cup teff flour
• 1/3 cup sweet rice flour
• 1/3 cup tapioca starch
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder (Hain Featherweight is corn free)
• 1 teaspoon guar gum
• 1 stick cold butter (or 8 tbs. cold palm shortening or other hard fat), cut into small pieces
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup cold water (estimated, see below for explanation)

1.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2.  Measure all of your dry ingredients into the bowl of your food processor.  Pulse until the flours are well combined.

3.  Take your small pieces of butter and/or fat and add it to the now mixed flours in the food processor. Pulse until the butter is incorporated into the flours and the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal.

4.  Stir the honey and the water together (I used a liquid measuring cup to make the next bit easier) and then, with the food processor running, stream the honey water mixture into the dry ingredients until a soft dough is formed (you can't miss when this happens because you'll suddenly have a dough ball in your food processor).  Your dough should be soft and pliable and actually sort of wet (trust me you'll need the moisture :).

5.  Place dough in small bowl and refrigerate for about 1/2 hour to let the moisture absorb fully into the dough.

6.  Pull out two jelly roll pans of the same size (they should nest in each other) and I'll show you a cool trick.

Dough with top piece of parchment removed

6.  Turn one pan upside down and spread parchment on the upside down sheetpan.  Place your dough ball in the middle of the parchment paper and cover with another sheet of parchment.    Roll the dough until it's about 1/4 of an inch thick (I had to keep checking since my parchment paper is aluminum foil on the backside so I couldn't see through it at all).

7.  Now, the cool part.  Take your other jelly roll pan and nest it over your upside down pan, keeping the parchment over the top of the dough.  Move the pans over to the edge of your counter and place your hand firmly underneath the bottom pan (try to get as close to the center as you can comfortably do) and then flip the entire thing over upright.

8.  Remove the "now" top pan and the layer of parchment paper facing upwards at you and voila!  Nice and pretty dough perfectly rolled out for you without having to try and get into the pan to roll it out or trying to move the dough with threat of breakage.

9.  Cut dough (I find a pizza cutter is the ultimate tool for something like this) into graham cracker sized shapes (I went for smore sized on mine).  I got about 12 graham cracker sized crackers out of my sheet with some odd man out crackers which will be turned into graham cracker crusts later (waste not, want not :).

10.  Place pan in fridge for 15 minutes to let the dough get cold again (or, if you're me and don't have room in your fridge stick it in your freezer for about 3 minutes or so). This will help the fat melt slower in the oven, thus giving you more of a loft to your cracker.

11.  Bake the graham crackers until they are golden brown and starting to harden about 15 to 20 minutes (honestly it might take longer, but these will burn super fast, so start checking them at the 15 to 20 minute mark).

12.  Remove tray from oven and let the crackers cool on the pan until they cooled and have hardened as much as they are going to.  Break them apart (if need be) and store in an airtight container.  As you can see I Food Savered mine for longer storage capacity (I went with 4 crackers per unit so that I'd have enough for 2 s'mores per package).

These crackers are super yummy by the way.  I'm quite proud of myself :).


And now onto the marshmallows!

Okay, this first recipe I can say I tweaked, but it's certainly not mine.  I actually got this off of a Food Network holiday special...geez like five years ago?  In it they were giving ideas for home made Christmas gift ideas and Tyler Florence (I think it was him anyway) did hot chocolate mix and home made marshmallows.  I haven't been able to track down the written recipe, I've only got my little hand written one I got from watching the special over and over again.  I just upped the amount of gelatin used in it (if you can't do gelatin I've heard that agar agar works just as well in a 1 to one ratio.  I BELIEVE each packet of gelatin equates to 1 TBS in powdered measurement to give you a starting point there).  So, here you go folks.  Some recipes for corn free marshmallows (I'll give one afterward for a egg free alternative too).

If you have a small stand mixer or do NOT have a huuuuugggee honking bowl, you might want to split the first recipe in half.  It makes an entire jelly roll pan full of marshmallows (which is a LOT) and it also takes up this much room in a 7 quart stand mixer when it's done mixing...

So, this might get a bit cramped in a smaller stand mixer.  Just wanted to warn you.  If you do end up splitting it in half I'd use an 8 x 8 pan for the mixture to set up in.

Corn Free Marshmallows

• 2 Cups Water
• 3 Packages Unflavored Gelatin
• 2 Cups Sugar (I used beet sugar this time around)
• 2 Egg Whites
• 2 Cups Powdered Sugar (Safeway sells a corn free powdered sugar in their O Organics line)

For Coating:

• 1 Cup Arrowroot Starch
• 1 Cup Powdered Sugar

Instructions:

1.  Mix water, sugar and gelatin in a saucepan and put under gentle heat until the gelatin is dissolved and everything is well incorporated.

2.  While the gelatin mixture is coming up to temp whip the confectioners sugar and egg whites in the bowl of your stand mixer to incorporate them together well.

3.  Line a jelly roll pan (fancy way of saying, "cookie sheet with a lip on it") with foil and/or parchment paper (I used parchment) and butter heavily (I just used olive oil cooking spray because I'm lazy like that).  I also butter underneath the parchment just to be sure that nothing slips underneath the parchment, sticks and causes problems later (it'll also help to hold the parchment paper down while you grease the top of it too). 

4.  Put arrowroot and powdered sugar for coating in a container with a tight fitting lid and then shake, shake shake to combine.  Take a wire mesh strainer and sprinkle the powdered sugar mixture into it and onto the buttered cookie sheet until well coated (don't skimp on this as it'll stop your marshmallows from sticking later!).

5.  Take gelatin mixture and dump into the stand mixer with your egg white mixture and then (if you are smart, trust me on this) take a clean dishtowel and quickly throw over the mixer and bowl (this will stop flying hot sugar from going all over your kitchen and potentially YOU).  Turn the mixer up as high as it will go and let er rip for 10 to 15 minutes.  The mixture will increase in volume a LOT and after 10 minutes or so you should be met with what looks to be marshmallow fluff and lots of it.

6.  Scoop mixture into the powder sugar coated cookie sheet/jelly roll pan, smoothing it out as best you can.  Then coat liberally with your arrowroot/powdered sugar mixture.

7.  Let sit overnight.

8.  In the morning (with your husband giving you weird looks while you're doing it), take a pizza cutter and cut the marshmallows to the size you like.  It helps if you dip the pizza cutter in your arrowroot mixture as you go to keep it from sticking to the marshmallows.  Once you have your "grid" figured out on your marshmallows, here's where the really messy part comes in.

9.  Take your marshmallows one at a time and coat them liberally in the arrowroot mixture and then place on cooling racks to dry (I place my cooling racks above more cookie sheets to catch most of the mess.  I literally dip the marshmallows in the sugar mixture just to be sure they get good coverage.

10.  Once done coating the marshmallows, good luck finding a spot to put 2 cookie sheets full of marshmallows to dry *laugh*.  Mine ended up in the middle of my kitchen table for the day.  Let sit until the outside forms of a nice "crust" on the marshmallows (it'll crunch when pushed, but you can pick them up and not have them stick to you type of crust).  Mine took about 8 to 10 hours to get where I was happy with them.

You can keep these in an airtight container for about 2 weeks.  You can keep them longer in your fridge (but they get sticky), or, you can do another (and wonderful to me) option and that is freeze them.  Yup, marshmallows freeze beautifully.  Who knew huh?  I now have 4 freezer bags full of marshmallows in my freezer to make treats out of later on.

 And now to the totally yummy part!  To make a s'more.  Take two graham crackers.  Take a marshmallow out of the freezer and place on one of the crackers.  Place in your microwave for 10 seconds (and watch the marshmallow expand!  It's pretty impressive).  When you pull it out the marshmallow will be ooey, gooey and melty.  Sprinkle some Enjoy Life Chocolate chips onto the marshmallow and place the other cracker on top.  And consume with lots of "yum" sounds (at least I hope so ;).

Enjoy all!