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Good day. My friends and I are planning on making a skillet based smores but with a twist. I've seen tons and tons of recipes but the basic recipe is that there's chocolate at the bottom of the skillet, with marshmallows on top, lining it. The skillet is then placed in the oven at a certain temperature for a certain period of time. The recipes vary on how you want your marshmallows.

However, we find the basic recipes bland after a certain period of time, and we want to spice things up. A common idea we had was to borrow how some cakes are drenched with baileys or kalhua, and we want to incorporate that with our skillet smores. However, we are not sure how to go about adding alcohol in skillet smores.

Our idea is to lace the chocolate with liquor before adding the mallows on top and putting it in the oven. However, we are unsure what happens to the liquor's alcohol if it would burn out. As much as possible, we want to preserve the alcohol as we are not sure what happens to our liquor of choice when the alcohol burns out.

Can anyone help us, and give us and idea on how to go about liquor laced skillet smores? Thank you.

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With your plans, you have encoutered some questions and problems. Let's tackle one after another:

  1. Alcohol boiling off
    Although often repeated and assumed due to the lower boiling point of alcohol vs. water, alcohol will not boil off completely. Even after a long boil not only traces, but a significant amount of alcohol remains. There is a question and a bunch of answers here on Seasoned Advice discussing this. However, loosing some of the alcohol won't be a problem, the taste should remain (mostly) unchanged, unless the heat is so high that sugars - and both Baileys and Kaluha are sweet - start to caramelize. Your chocolate wouldn't fare well at high temperatures as well, so that's not the route to go anyway.

  2. Alcohol / liquor and chocolate
    Those two are unlikely to mix as long as the chocolate remains solid. Even after the chocolate has melted, you'd have to stir to incorporate the Baileys and be at risk of the chocolate "seizing", that is, getting lumpy. If you were thinking along the lines of whiskey truffles etc., those are made with heated chocolate + cream + liquor, then left to cool and solidify.

  3. Soaking the "cake" or in this case the Graham crackers (as suggested by another answer)
    Typically, one would expect additional liquor to be added to the baked goods, because they are "willing" to soak it up. Now as Skillet S'mores use the crackers to scoop up the soft chocolate-marshmallow mix, soggy crackers won't do. Unless you are planning to divide the crackers into individual serving bowls and spooning the mixture on top (or baking in individual cups with a soaked cracker base), that is not the way to go.

So what?

You want the alcohol to go into the chocolate. The only feasible way is to gently(!) melt the chocolate, either in the skillet (don't burn!) or in a bain marie (a bowl set over hot water). Use dry utensils and stir carefully, do not let small drops of water get into the chocolate. If possible, gently heat your alcohol, too. Add enough liquid to prevent seizing, that means go for at least one tablespoon per two ounces of chocolate, possibly more. If you feel that's too much alcohol, add some cream. Stir well.

Pour chocolate into pre-warmed skillet (if not already there), cover with marshmallows, broil until marshmallows start to melt and bubble, enjoy!

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  • This looks very very helpful. Thank you for the answer! I'll give feedback as soon as we try this out.
    – Razgriz
    May 14, 2015 at 13:59
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Alcohol begins to boil/burn off at 173F or 78.3C. Chocolate melts at 104F - 113F (40-45C). Marshmallows caramelize at at higher temperature than both the above. So, you could get the booze laced chocolate melted (if your oven goes that low...many do not), but you will burn off the alcohol when you caramelize the mallow.

Why not infuse the cake with the liquor and add it at the end, after cooking?

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  • Sorry my question might have confused you, but we are not baking cake. We are making skillet smores, no cakes involved. When do you suggest we incorporate the liquor?
    – Razgriz
    May 14, 2015 at 12:36
  • @Razgriz Since you referred to borrowing the idea of how some cakes are drenched, I was thinking you might use a cake-type concoction in place of the graham cracker typically found in smores.
    – moscafj
    May 14, 2015 at 13:05
  • But would it hold up? Having a liquor laced cracker in place of the graham is a good idea but it's added work. As much as possible, we want to lace the smores itself.
    – Razgriz
    May 14, 2015 at 13:40
  • @Razgriz clearly it would not have a crunch. It would be different, but could be delicious if you have a graham tasting, liquor infused cake. The flavor elements would be there. You could add graham cracker crumbs for texture.
    – moscafj
    May 14, 2015 at 14:45

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