use real butter

Recipe: s’mores rice krispies treats

Goodbye, August. And good riddance. It was brutally hot, dry, and smoky here last month. The mushrooms fizzled. The berries are few and best left for the wildlife who need them. Wildfires sprouted around the state – some caused by lightning, others most likely started by careless or ignorant campers. But as we’ve learned in pandemic life, you make do. Sometimes you can make do pretty well if you’re vigilant. Anyone catch the Perseids meteor shower in mid August? We were at our place in Crested Butte where we managed a couple of clear nights and witnessed a beautiful show.

composite of several meteors dropping behind whetstone mountain

paddling with the dogs before the smoke got bad

back home in nederland, where the smoke got bad

Within the last week, Colorado has received some rain and a cool down – enough to improve our air quality and make temperatures bearable. You don’t realize what you’ve got until it’s gone, but when it comes back you should definitely make the most of it! We sincerely hope that we have turned the corner from summer and can look forward to a gentle slide into autumn, pandemic notwithstanding.

it’s green chile season!

a successful batch of non-dairy chocolate ice cream using oat milk

i made a sushi bowl to celebrate jeremy’s promotion to full professor

Schools in our area have resumed – mostly online and some hybrid. Jeremy is teaching online this semester and investing the time to create as positive and educational an experience as possible for his students. And the decision to convert our guest room into a second office dovetailed nicely with my yearslong desire to donate or recycle some large pieces of old furniture. That freed up more space which I transformed into an out-of-the-way sewing area where dogs and needles will rarely, if ever, interact. I used it the other night to make myself a pocket apron when running errands in town. A purse is pretty impractical when I need fast access to things with minimal touching, so I designed a pocket apron to accommodate the stuff I use when grocery shopping alone. It’s great!

new office for either of us to use as needed

sewing nook

pocket apron: mini spray bottles of alcohol on either end, iphone, my man wallet, notepad and pen, keys, hand sanitizer

Labor Day weekend is coming up and we are prepared to basically hunker down and avoid the onslaught of people flocking to the mountains. My hope is that no one will burn our neighborhood down, but the public doesn’t have a great track record there. Great fun can be had without giant or even small fires. Grab that extra hat and jacket if it’s going to be chilly and use a camp stove! Better yet, forget about cooking and just make these s’mores rice krispies treats ahead of time.

rice krispies cereal, marshmallows, butter, cinnamon graham crackers, dark chocolate

I am a crazy person for marshmallows, possibly because they are creamy without dairy, but also because they burn so deliciously. The original recipe inspiration uses graham crackers, but I splurged on those cinnamon graham crackers from Trader Joe’s because I knew in my heart that cinnamon and chocolate were meant to be. I opted for chopped dark chocolate here, however the original recipe calls for mini chocolate chips which saves you the trouble of taking a knife to a block of chocolate. If you’ve ever made rice krispies treats, then you’re good to go with this summer’s-last-hurrah-camping version.

add marshmallows into melted butter

combine the marshmallow with the graham crackers and cereal

stir in some chocolate

There aren’t any hard and fast rules to rice krispies treats aside from the cereal and the marshmallow. Use m&ms, chopped toffee, nuts, peanut butter, crushed oreos, pretzels, potato chips. But I have to say the s’mores version is on point.

pour the mixture and press it evenly into a greased pan

sprinkle the remaining chocolate on top

finish with some more marshmallows

How to brown the marshmallows? I have a regular-size propane torch for kitchen applications since those tiny hand-size torches don’t work at my altitude. I love any excuse to use my torch. It blackens the marshmallows nicely (to Jeremy’s dismay – he likes lightly toasted marshmallows and I like charred), but doesn’t apply enough heat to get the chocolate layer melty. So after a few scorched sections, I chucked the pan under the broiler, which did a fine job. You do have to keep eyes on it to put out any fires. Once the top is to your liking, let the whole thing cool through before cutting.

you can torch it

but a broiler did a better job

Here, rice krispies treats and s’mores had a delicious adorable baby. These are especially tasty when eaten in the mountains or woods or at the beach or by a lake. In case you weren’t ready for the holiday weekend, you are now.

a marriage of happy treats

jeremy confirms: they are more delicious in the mountains

S’mores Rice Krispies Treats
[print recipe]
from Dinner Club Diaries

1/4 cup butter
16 oz. mini marshmallows (divided into 10 oz. and 6 oz.)
6 cups rice krispies cereal
5 oz. (about 1 sleeve) graham crackers, broken into small pieces (I used cinnamon graham crackers)
1 cup mini chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate (divided into 2/3 cup and 1/3 cup)

Grease a 9 x 13-inch baking dish or pan. Melt the butter in a large pan over medium heat. When the butter has melted, stir 10 ounces of the marshmallows into the butter. Keep stirring until the marshmallows have melted. Remove the pan from the heat and stir the cereal and graham crackers into the melted marshmallows. Mix 2/3 cup of the chocolate into the cereal and scrape it all into the prepared baking pan. Press the mixture into an even layer in the pan. Sprinkle the remaining 1/3 cup of chocolate over the mixture, then sprinkle the remaining 6 ounces of marshmallows on top. Press the toppings down to help them stick to the bars. Place the pan under a broiler for a few minutes (watch carefully to prevent burning) or brown the tops with a propane torch. Note: I tried the torch, but decided to finish with a broiler to get more heat onto the underlying chocolate. Let cool completely before slicing.

more goodness from the use real butter archives

cookie butter marshmallow swirl chocolate ice cream

homemade marshmallows

mallow cookies (db)

rice crispy treats

September 1st, 2020: 9:32 pm
filed under chocolate, confections, dessert, entertaining, junkfood, recipes, rice, sweet