Campfire S’mores Cake

Summer is here, and cravings for ooey-gooey campfire roasted s’mores has begun! This campfire s’mores cake is made from a fluffy homemade vanilla cake with a graham cracker crust layered with creamy milk chocolate buttercream, and toasted marshmallow meringue.

This cake has all the flavors of campfire s’mores packed into a delicious dessert. It may take a little work and some finesse, but the results are so worth it.

The sweet vanilla cake is perfectly baked on top of a graham cracker crust. Then it’s layered with milk chocolate buttercream, velvety smooth marshmallow meringue and drizzled with dark chocolate ganache. And it’s topped with a white chocolate bark that’s dusted with graham cracker crumbs.

The marshmallow meringue is sweet and gives you the perfect ooey-gooey experience that you love about sitting around a campfire.

To get the campfire experience, you’ll use a blow torch to toast the marshmallow meringue to perfection. By using a culinary blow torch, it’ll also make you feel like a real pastry chef.

Tips before baking:

• Do NOT use store-bought marshmallow fluff. It’s becomes too thin/runny.
• You can make the graham cracker crust, ganache, white chocolate bark, and chocolate buttercream a day ahead and refrigerate them overnight, then take them out to come back to room temperature. Make sure buttercream is at room temperature before re-whipping.
• You can make bake the vanilla cake ahead of time, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze up to one month.

What Tools You’ll Need to Make This Cake:

• Stand Mixer with Paddle & Whisk Attachments, or Electric Hand Mixer
• 3, 6-inch Cake Pans
• 8-inch or 10-inch White Cake Board
• Cake Leveler or Serrated Knife
• Turntable
• Bench Scraper
• Offset Spatula
• Piping Bag
• #844 Star Tip
• Whisk
• Rubber Spatula
• Cooking Spray and Parchment Paper
• Ice Cream Scooper with Trigger Release (for dividing cake batter evenly)
• Culinary Blow Torch
• Cake Stand, optional

Here’s how to make this campfire s’mores cake that might be better than s’mores!

Let’s Get Baking!

Graham Cracker Crust

1. In a food processor, blend the graham crackers until they are fine crumbs. Add sugar and melted butter to the food processor and mix until well combined. Set aside.

How to Make Vanilla Cake

1. Preheat oven at 350℉. Prepare 3-6” round cake pans with cooking spray and parchment paper. Place a ½ cup of graham cracker crust mixture in each cake pan. Compact and flatten the crust to the bottom of cake pans.  
2. In a stand mixer bowl combine the all-purpose flour, cornstarch, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Whisk together to de-clump the dry ingredients. Begin mixing on low with a paddle attachment.
3. Add butter to the dry ingredients, continue to mix on low until the mixture looks like sand. Then add the eggs one at a time and vanilla mix until fully incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
4. Pour the milk into the batter. Blend on medium for 30 seconds until the batter is smooth and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
5. Evenly divide and pour the cake batter into 3 cake pans. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of each cake comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs.
6. Remove cakes from the oven and let cool in pans for 10 minutes before inverting onto cooling racks to cool. Wrap cakes in plastic wrap and place into the freezer to chill for 30 minutes.

Marshmallow Meringue

1. In a small saucepan, bring water to a simmer over medium-high heat. In a medium glass or stainless steel bowl, combine egg whites and sugar.
2. Lower the heat to low and carefully place the bowl over the saucepan. Begin whisking to dissolve the sugar. Heat the mixture to 160℉ or until the sugar has fully dissolved and is no longer grainy.
3. Remove from the heat and pour the hot mixture into a stand mixer bowl. Place onto the stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whip on high for 8-10 minutes or until the becomes a soft peak meringue.
4. On low speed, add the vanilla extract and whip on high for 2-3 minutes to get a firm peak meringue. Place into a piping bag fitted with a #844 star tip.

Chocolate Ganache

1. Add semi-sweet chocolate chips to a small microwavable bowl. In another small microwavable bowl, heat heavy cream to a light simmer about 1 minute.
2. Pour the hot heavy cream over chocolate chips. Allow chocolate to melt for 1 minute. Use a whisk or rubber spatula to mix the chocolate and cream. Mix until its velvety smooth. If chocolate is still not melted, heat in the microwave in 15-second increments. Set aside to cool before pouring into a squeeze bottle.  

White Chocolate Bark

1. Place a large piece of wax paper (or parchment paper) over a baking sheet. Set aside.
2. In a microwavable bowl, melt together white chocolate and coconut oil. Use a rubber spatula to combine the chocolate and oil. Pour chocolate mixture over prepared wax paper and smooth out with an offset spatula. Sprinkle graham cracker crumbs over the top. Set aside to dry.

Milk Chocolate Buttercream

1. In the stand mixer bowl fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
2. Turn the mixer to low and add vanilla and salt. Then gradually add the powdered sugar and cocoa powder, followed by the cream. Mix until combined. Mix until incorporated completely. Scrape down sides of the bowl.
3. Turn the mixer to medium-high and beat the frosting for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add a tiny dot of green and yellow gel food color as needed. Then turn the mixer on low and mix for 2 minutes to push out any air bubbles.

How to Put It All Together

1. Layer a chilled vanilla cake, graham cracker crust side down onto cake board. Place a thin layer of buttercream on top of the cake then pipe a ring of chocolate buttercream. Add 1/4 cup of marshmallow meringue inside the circle of chocolate buttercream. Drizzle chocolate ganache. Place another cake layer graham cracker crust side down on top. Repeat process for another layer.
2. Crumb coat and freeze for 20 minutes. Then add a thicker layer of frosting and smooth the sides out using a bench scraper.
3. Add the graham cracker crumbs on the bottom and drip the ganache over the sides and on top. Pipe dollops of marshmallow meringue on top and torch to toast the meringue. Finally, break off pieces of the white chocolate bark and add on top.     

You May Also Enjoy:

• Lucky Charms Cereal Cake (tutorial)
• How to Make Perfect Cake Pops (free training)
• How to Decorate Your First Cake (free course)
• Cake Decorating for Beginners (online course)
• Cake Decorating Tool Kit (24-piece kit with free shipping) 

This toasted campfire s’mores cake is beyond brilliant for those summer nights. With this cake, you will recreate that same ooey-gooey s’mores flavor!

Happy Baking!

Hey, if you liked this tutorial, you really should check out, Cake Decorating Creator Program, my online cake program. I coach you on everything I teach on these cake tutorials so that you can uplevel your baking and decorating skills. We 10x it so you get the results you want most. Like any new skill, it’s important to learn from the ground up to build a foundation, so you can take on any cake challenge. It is an investment your future self will thank you for. Check it out at XOKatieRosario.com/creator-program. I will see you there!

Watch The How-to Video Below:

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