S’mores, as a named recipe, first show up in print in the late 1920s, with roots in earlier campfire snacks from the 1910s and 1920s.

Quick Scoop

  • The first known recipe recognizable as a s’more appears in a 1920s “Campfire Marshmallows” cookbook, where it’s called a “Graham Cracker Sandwich,” and is already associated with youth camping groups.
  • The famous 1927 moment is the Girl Scout guidebook Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts , which prints a recipe called “Some More,” widely credited as the first official s’mores recipe.
  • The ingredients themselves are older:
    • Graham crackers date back to 19th‑century health and temperance movements.
* Marshmallows evolved from medicinal plant preparations to confections in the 1800s.

* Chocolate bars became common in the mid‑1800s as solid eating chocolate was developed.

So, when were s’mores “invented”?

  • As a campfire combo of graham cracker, chocolate, and toasted marshmallow, the treat was popular with Scouts and campers by the early 1920s.
  • As a named recipe , most food historians point to 1927 and that Girl Scout handbook as the “invention” of s’mores in the form we recognize today.
  • The shortened name “s’mores” (from “some more”) shows up in print in the 1930s and 1950s, cementing the modern name.

In everyday terms, saying “s’mores were invented in 1927 by the Girl Scouts” is accurate enough, even though the building blocks and earlier versions were around a bit earlier.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.