Big Bear + S’mores

Around mid-October, I begin to pine for the vibrant colors of the Oregon autumn, and look wistfully out the window at the relatively brownish landscape I’m surrounded by here in North Hollywood. This year, we decided to pop out of town for a weekend with our friends and their puppy and head up to the hills for a brief seasonal retreat. I’d never been to Big Bear before, but had heard great things about the area, and figured that with it’s high elevation it must feel more woodsy than L.A. at the very least. It was about a 2 hour drive outside the city, with many twists and turns toward the end, but eventually the mountain tops parted and we found ourselves at the edge of a very long and very clear blue lake. We had booked someone’s little lakeside cabin through the always enjoyable Airbnb, and while there was a bit of hiking involved to get to the place, the view of the lake could not have been more beautiful, and the setting for s’mores could not have been more idyllic. It had a wonderfully rustic feel to it and we immediately felt right at home.

Yes, I am one of those people for whom s’mores and a grill always go hand in hand. Even if we’re just grilling up some burgers at home in our backyard in the summer, I always buy s’mores fixings so I can make them for dessert once the coals start to smolder. There’s just something amazing that happens when marshmallows are cooking over intense, smoky heat like that. Gooey on the inside, crunchy on the outside….y’all know what I talking about.

While there were many a traditional s’mores made at the cabin, I decided to try out some more adventurous takes on s’mores that I’d been thinking about for a while (why yes, I do fantasize about s’mores in my free time.) One of them doesn’t even have a marshmallow in it, so I don’t know if it technically qualifies as a “s’mores”, but it does include a chunk of brie slow-roasted on a stick and covered in raspberry jam, so at least there’s that. Also, making dozens of s’mores was an excellent excuse to try out my rustic roasters I’d been itching to use (both the horn and the wood handled ones!) I didn’t realize how long and sturdy they were at first, and looking back wish I would have brought some meat with me to cook souvlaki-style with them over the charcoal, but there’s always next year…

And on that note, here’s a few photos from our weekend in the woods, followed by recipes for bananas foster s’mores, key lime pie s’mores, roasted strawberry balsamic s’mores, and roasted brie & raspberry jam s’mores. They were all ridiculously tasty, but I think the overall favorite was the bananas foster s’mores. The banana toasted up so nice on the outside all covered in rum and brown sugar, and it went crazy good with the toasted marshmallows and chocolate. But to be fair, you really can’t go wrong with coating fruit in booze and then roasting it over hot coals…