What I love most about summer are summer nights and camp fires. Growing up, my family would vacation at White Lake Camp Ground in New Hampshire. And by family, I mean my aunts, uncles, and cousins. So many great memories came from White Lake. Most of those memories happened around camp fires. The recipe for a great fire includes (but not limited to): stories, comfy sweats, laughter, music, charades, and s’mores. I was recently looking at a family photo from one of those camping trips and felt inspired to make this camp fire Chex mix.

If you can’t tell by the extremely accurate paper plate face, I’m the kid in the front row on the far right.

One of the things I miss about suburban living is the ‘backyard experience.’ Throughout the summer, my family tries to get a fire roaring outside at least once a weekend. If the weather cooperates and we’re in a good mood, we’ll break out a fire on a weeknight. But with every fire, s’mores have to be involved. S’mores are one of my favorite summer desserts. What’s better than a crispy marshmallow, graham cracker, and chocolate?

Camp fire Chex mix: totally worth it.

I love a crispy, charred marshmallow. However, my Uncle Dave taught us how to roast the perfect marshmallow. Slightly crisp on the outside, melted on the inside. The trick to getting this perfectly roasted marshmallow is to hold it (on the stick) at the top of the fire. Not in the fire, but just above it where the flames just kiss the marshmallow. Slowly rotate your stick to evenly cook the marshmallow. While this takes a little longer to roast a marshmallow, it’s totally worth it.

With summer officially in full swing, I wanted to capture that backyard experience in our apartment. Using some of the basics from our Pumpkin Spice Chex Mix I added the essential components of a s’more and made this camp fire Chex mix.