When I think of summer desserts, s’mores immediately come to mind. Nothing is better than sitting around a fire on a nice summer night and cooking up some s’mores! These s’mores cookies combine all of these classic flavors into a delicious and chewy cookie. There are graham cracker crumbs in the dough and chocolate chips and mini marshmallows mixed in. S’mores are classically super sweet, so I combat that with flaky sea salt on top, less sugar in the dough, and using a darker chocolate.
Making the s’mores cookies is super easy. If you have a food processor, you will want to use it to crush up the graham crackers to make crumbs. If you don’t, you can put the graham crackers in a large plastic bag and hit them with a rolling pin until they are broken down into crumbs. Once you have your graham cracker crumbs made, you are ready to bake!
Making the S’mores Cookies
First combine the melted butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar. The recipe says to use a mixer, but you can also just use a whisk and some man power. Since you don’t have to beat room temperature butter and sugar, using a whisk is totally doable. It’s still harder but results in the same cookie! Once your butter and sugars are combined, add your eggs and vanilla extract and mix until combined. Then add your dry ingredients (graham cracker crumbs, flour, baking soda, salt) on low speed.
Once your dough is formed, use a wooden spoon or rubber spatula to mix in the mini marshmallows and chocolate chips. You can use chocolate chips, chunks or disks for this recipe. They are basically always interchangeable, but the results are slightly different. The disks will give you large pools of chocolate and create thin layers of chocolate in the cookie, while the chips will melt more locally and create little chocolatey spots more dispersed throughout the cookie. I am usually partial to disks (like these) because I love the layers they create, but I think chips are delicious in this cookie! When your dough is finished, let it rest, covered at room temperature, for at least 45 minutes to an hour. This will help thicken the dough bit and keep the cookies from spreading too much. You can also rest your dough in the refrigerator overnight. Take the dough out of the fridge and let it sit at room temperature while you preheat the oven. This will help keep your cookies a more circular shape, but you also have to wait longer.
They will still spread in the oven, so make sure you space them a few inches apart on the baking sheet. On my large baking sheet, I bake 6 s’mores cookies at a time. Once your dough is rested, use a 2.5 tbsp cookie scoop to create about 18 equal sized cookies. If you have a kitchen scale, each cookie should be about 65 oz. The amount of cookies this recipe makes differs by the type of chocolate you use, but it will fall somewhere in the 16-20 range. Once you form your cookie dough balls, I will place some extra mini marshmallows on top of the cookies. I really like the look and taste of the roasted marshmallows on top! I will place anywhere from 3-4 mini marshmallows on top of each cookie, depending on how many marshmallows I can see in the dough ball. The mini marshmallows on top get roasted like they would over a fire so they super gooey and delicious!
Top the cookies with some flaky sea salt and then bake in the oven for about 10 minutes. The edges should be set and crisp and the centers still gooey. Let the cookies sit on the baking sheet for a few minutes before you move them to the cooling rack. The melty marshmallows make them a little difficult to move immediately from the oven. After a few minutes, transfer the cookies to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely.
Recipe Notes and Tips
The marshmallows that are in the cookie dough will melt. Which is great and tasty! They may also melt off of the top of the cookie while it bakes, which is no biggy! If the marshmallows are touching the pan, the sugars in the marshmallows will caramelize and create crunchy edges with cooked sugar. You can see this in the middle image above. I really love those pieces because they have this toffee-like quality that is so sticky and delicious. The pieces can get very crisp, like a hard caramel candy. This is actually Jared’s favorite part of the cookie – he even asked if he could eat off all of the edges of the cookies in the latest batch I made! But if you prefer not to eat them, they are really easy to break off once the cookies are cooled. Some of the pieces will naturally break off as you move the cookies to the cooling rack. Try it both ways and see what you like best – then just do what you prefer! But I can attest that I have made these cookies for many people, and almost everyone thinks the crisp edges are the best part!
Some tips on graham crackers: I have made these cookies successfully with honey grahams (my favorite), cinnamon grahams, chocolate grahams and even graham treats like Teddy Grahams or even the Paw Patrol (lol) ones! All of them work great.
- Honey grahams will give you the most traditional s’mores flavor, so they are my favorite.
- Cinnamon grahams are very similar but you will definitely a distinct cinnamon flavor, which is delicious but not as traditional for a s’mores. These grahams are also slightly sweeter, so I omit 1 tbsp of brown sugar.
- Chocolate grahams make the cookies SUPER chocolately which is so delicious if you are a big chocolate fan! Again, not super traditional for a s’mores but so delicious! And while you’re at it, go ahead and increase the chocolate chips to 2 cups, might as well go all out with the chocolate on this one!
- Graham treats work well in a pinch, but they are definitely sweeter than regular graham crackers. I omit 2 tbsp of brown sugar when using these. They also have a more cinnamon flavor than traditional grahams, so you can expect that change, as well. These also make the cookies slightly less chewy than traditional grahams. Still very delicious! You can use varying flavors of graham treats (i.e. chocolate chip Teddy Grahams) but be mindful of the sweetness.
If you love chocolatey cookies, you should also check out my recipes for Toffee Chocolate Chunk Cookies, Chewy Chocolate Cherry Cookies, and my One Pan Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookie!
S’mores Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 stick unsalted butter (1/2 cup) melted
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 3 tbsp granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup crushed graham cracker crumbs (from about 10 graham crackers) (see blog post above for notes on graham cracker varieties)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 heaping cup mini marshmallows plus more for topping
- 1.75 cups semisweet chocolate chips (can also use milk or bittersweet – chips, chunks and discs all work!)
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer or using a hand mixer on medium speed, combine the melted butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until combined. If you don't have a mixer, this is a great recipe to make my hand using a whisk, instead!
- Add the eggs and the vanilla extract and beat on medium until fully incorporated. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and mix briefly to combine.
- Add your dry ingredients – flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, and salt – and mix on low until a dough is formed.
- Using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir in the marshmallows and chocolate chips.
- Since you are using graham cracker crumbs in place of some the flour, this cookie dough is a little more wet than other cookie doughs. Let it sit for at least 45 minutes to an hour covered at room temperature before scooping into cookie dough balls and baking. You can also rest the cookie dough covered in the refrigerator overnight. When you are preheating the oven the next day, let the cookies sit out at room temperature before you bake them.
- Preheat the oven to 375F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. I always say to use parchment paper, but this time it’s SUPER important! The melted marshmallows will stick to the pan, making it very hard to move the cookies without the parchment paper down.
- Once the dough is finished resting, use a cookie scoop to measure about 18 evenly sized cookies at about 65 ounces each. Roll the cookies into a ball. Please note – the number of cookies you get varies by the type of chocolate you use. So as long as the cookies are evenly sized and you have around 18, you have them at the right size!
- Arrange the cookie dough balls a few inches apart on the baking sheet lined with parchment paper. These cookies spread a decent amount when baking and the marshmallows will melt a bit and the sugar will caramelize, so you want these to be spread out far enough apart. On my very large baking sheet, I only bake 6 at a time.
- Place a few extra mini marshmallows on top of the cookie dough balls by pressing them gently into the top of the dough. I put 3-4 more on top depending on how many marshmallows I can see in the cookies. I really love the look and taste of the extra roasted marshmallows on top. Some of them might slip off in the oven, don't worry about that!
- Sprinkle the cookies with a little bit of flaky sea salt and then bake for 10 minutes, until the edges are set and crispy and the centers are still gooey.
- Let the cookies cool on the pan for a few minutes before attempting to transfer to a cooling rack. The melted marshmallows make these very difficult to transfer straight out of the oven.
- The marshmallows might melt off of the top a bit or ooze out of the sides while baking, some of the melted marshmallows will melt and their sugars will caramelize, creating crisp edge pieces (photos and more detail in the last paragraph of the blog post above). This is Jared’s favorite part of the cookie, but if you don’t want it there, it’s easy to break off when the cookies are cooled.
- Repeat until you have finished all of your cookie dough! If any of the melted marshmallow pieces are stuck to the parchment paper, try to remove them before you bake your next batch. You don’t want the burnt sugar to change the taste of the cookies!
- Allow the cookies to cool completely and enjoy!
