I made these s’mores for an overnight camping trip. S’mores are okay – they taste better in the great outdoors, and the best part is the hot, gooey marshmallow.

S’Mores a la Sheri is, in my opinion, a better s’more. One of the problems with traditional s’mores is that the marshmallow is perfect and gooey, but the traditional Hershey’s bar (or Valrhona, in our case) is too thick to melt. It’s awkward.

I made my own marshmallows – that was phase one of the plan. This recipe is really easy, and uses gelatin, egg whites, and sugar syrup to create fluffy marshmallows.

Phase two of the plan was to make my own graham crackers. I did a graham cracker bake-off several years ago, but I have two more recipes I’ve been wanting to try. I won’t be writing about this one because the dough turned out very dry and essentially unusable. I’m not sure if it was me or the recipe.

I proceeded with phase three, using Attune graham crackers instead of my own. I tempered some Valrhona bittersweet chocolate, then painted it onto the top of each graham cracker with a pastry brush. I tried to put the chocolate on fairly thick, because I wanted the chocolate flavor to be prominent.

I chose to temper the chocolate (instead of just melting it) so it would dry hard and shiny onto the top of the crackers. I wanted them to travel well since we were taking them camping. If I was making these just for home use I’d probably save myself the trouble of tempering and just use melted chocolate (it can be cooled to harden a bit in the refrigerator).

The hot marshmallow goes in between the chocolate coated crackers. The chocolate melts and stays on the graham cracker. I think I’ve definitely improved on the s’more.

• Mashmallows (Fine Cooking #36, January 2000, p. 47)