Sugar High Friday - Mmm ... Canada - Oat S'mores

I love my foodie magazines. I subscribe to 4 of them, 2 Australian and 2 Kiwi, and I get very excited when I see them peeping out of the mailbox. I don't cook something out of every edition, but it gives me great pleasure to read them and look at the wonderful photographs, wishing that I could be eating some of the mouthwatering treats within the pages. If money can buy pleasure, then this is what I buy with my foodie magazines.

On the cover of the June/July 2008 edition of Donna Hay magazine, there is a gorgeous photograph of some marshmallow and chocolate filled biscuits, which I discovered were oat s'mores. Wikipedia tells me that s'mores originate in the US and Canada, and are a popular campfire food. It goes on to say that they are traditionally made by softening a marshmallow on a stick over a campfire, then placing the hot marshmallow on top of a piece of chocolate and sandwiching the lot between two graham crackers. Gooey chocolate and marshmallow is an irresistable combination, so I knew that I had to make these.

About the same time, I read that Jennifer, The Domestic Goddess and founder of Sugar High Fridays, had selected Mmm ... Canada as the theme for Sugar High Friday this month. Participation is simple - post about your favourite Canadian sweet indulgence, which can be anything that says Canada to you. I am not familiar with Canadian cuisine, but as s'mores are Canadian (as well as American), I thought it would be a perfect excuse to make Donna Hay's oat s'mores for SHF this month.

These biscuits are delicious - the soft oatey cookie is a perfect foil for the gooey chocolate and marshmallow which oozes out the sides. Unfortunately, the recipe doesn't make very many biscuits, so I had to cut them in half for work. Needless to say, they were popular!

To make these s'mores, you will need:

125g softened butter
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 1/2 cups sifted plain flour
1/2 teaspoon sifted baking powder
1/3 cup rolled oats
one square of dark chocolate and one marshmallow for each pair of biscuits

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line two baking trays with baking paper or silicone mats.

Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla in an electric mixer until creamy. Beat in the egg, then on low speed, beat in the flour and the baking powder until just combined. Stir in the rolled oats. Put tablespoons of the biscuit dough onto the prepared baking trays with sufficient room between them to allow for spreading, and slightly flatten each tablespoon of mixture. Bake the biscuits in the oven for around 12 minutes, then remove from the oven and cool the golden biscuits on the trays.

Once the biscuits have cooled, pair them up, and place a marshmallow on the flat side one biscuit in each pair and a square of chocolate on the flat side of the other biscuit in each pair. Place the biscuits in the oven until the chocolate and marshmallows have just started to melt (not for too long otherwise they will melt off the biscuits!!), and place the two halves of each pair together so that you end up with biscuit sandwiches containing chocolate and marshmallow. You can eat them while the filling is still gooey (that is, the traditional way), or when the filling has cooled and set. The recipe says that you should end up with 20 biscuits; I ended up with 16.

Thanks to Jennifer for taking us all to Canada for SHF this month, and I look forward to the roundup at the end of the month.

On a different note, the wonderful Ivy of Kopiaste awarded me the Rockin' Girl Blogger Award. Thanks Ivy! I now get to pass it on to 5 other blogging friends, so I nominate:

Rita of Mochachocolata Rita, who always makes me laugh and has one the coolest banners around;

Gretchen of Canela & Comino, who fascinates me with her tales of Peruvian cuisine;

Tammy of Wee Treats by Tammy who is a talented cook and makes excellent retro fashion greeting cards;

Emiline of Visions of Sugar Plum, who has me in stitches with her writing and who creates fab original recipes; and

Y of Lemonpi, who makes gorgeous cakes and sweet treats in very professional manner.

Do go and check out these blogs if you are not already - each is a fine read.