Living at (and running) a summer camp, as well as being former campers and counselors, Erik and I pretty much consider ourselves s’mores connoisseurs. S’moresseurs, if you will. Cookies and marshmallows are campfire staples any time of the year, but right now it’s Girl Scout cookie season – so we decided to make gourmet s’mores with them!

While my favorite Girl Scout cookie is actually the Tagalong, I thought those might be too thick to sandwich a marshmallow in between and still be able to take a bite. Luckily my runner up favorites (and Erik’s no. 1 pick) were both 1) thin enough and 2) had a chocolate coating – Caramel deLites and Thin Mints.

After procuring the cookies (thanks Bay City Girl Scouts!), I made it my mission to find marshmallows that would pair well with them. I ultimately bought 3 packs:

• Chocolate Chip marshmallows from North Mallow
• Salted Caramel marshmallows from Creekside Mallow Co
• Toasted Coconut marshmallows from Hammond’s Candies

I had previously known about North Mallow because they’re a Minnesota brand AND made by a husband-and-wife team of former camp counselors (so obviously I love everything about them). Whole Foods carries North Mallow but the store I went to only had chocolate chip and vanilla flavor in stock; I picked up the chocolate chip thinking they would pair nicely with the Thin Mints. Then, because knew I wanted a caramel marshmallow to pair with the Caramel deLites, I found the salted caramel from Creekside Mallow Co – as well as the Hammond’s marshmallows – at REI.

Toasting the marshmallows

These mallows definitely toasted differently than your average JetPuffeds; all of them cooked much more quickly and really bubbled on the surface. It was tricky to toast the coconut ones because the shredded coconut made them burn easily (plus they were pretty small in general). The chocolate chip marshmallows liquified very quickly, which is totally fine except the first one fell off the stick! The salted caramel ones got a nice brown color and did so very quickly.

Pairing with cookies

Erik is a chocoholic so he chose to pair the chocolate chip marshmallow with his favorite Girl Scout cookie – the Caramel deLite. He found that the small-ish marshmallow was overwhelmed by the cookies and tasted better open-faced style. However, I then sandwiched the chocolate chip marshmallow between two Thin Mints and thought the cookie-to-mallow ratio was perfect. If you’re a fan of a chocolate and mint combination, this makes a great s’more!

I prefer Caramel deLites to Thin Mints so was very excited to try them with a salted caramel marshmallow. And it was DELICIOUS! The large marshmallow was full of caramel flavor and tasted great with the cookies. It was a thick s’more but not too thick that it was awkward to bite into. This was my absolute favorite flavor pairing and I would highly recommend trying it.

After two gourmet s’mores, I was pretty full and didn’t think I could eat another, so the coconut marshmallows got the short end of the stick (ha – roasting marshmallow joke!) in this taste test. However, I roasted a marshmallow on its own and it was overall pretty good, if not a little small (plus the coconut shreds caused it to burn).  

Conclusion

This taste test was a fun way to elevate a campfire experience with gourmet s’mores. It made me curious as to what other cookie/marshmallow combinations would be good (and also made me look up recipes to make my own marshmallows). We’ve already mastered the traditional, tried-and-true s’more, and we have LOTS of time to concoct some brand new s’mores recipes at camp!

Do you have a favorite s’more recipe or cookie/marshmallow combination? Tell us about it!