Ultimate Rice Krispie Treats

Inspired by Smitten Kitchen's Salted Brown Butter Crispy Treats, I whipped up a batch of the classic snack last night.  I cannot even tell you the last time I made Rice Krispie Treats, but it can't have been in the last five years.  I think I imagine them as the too hard, sickly sweet gigantic hunk o'krispie that you get in coffee shops and bakeries and I cringe.  Salted brown butter RKTs are a different animal entirely, but every bit as mind blowingly simple.

 Why yes, I did open up the Ziploc bag to take this photo after I had packaged them up.

I used:
1/2 stick unsalted butter
1/2 stick salted butter
1 10 oz bag of jumbo marshmallows
6 cups of crispy rice cereal (I admit - I used store brand - sorry Kellogg's)
Butter flavored Pam
a large pan (baking, cake, Pyrex, heck a jellyroll pan will work, you'll just have thinner treats)

Melt the butter over medium heat and allow to brown slightly.  In the meantime, spray your pan with Pam.
Turn off the heat and add in the marshmallows.  Stir to combine as the marshmallows melt.  If you need to turn the heat back on to low you can do so, but for heaven's sake, don't walk away!
Once the marshmallows are melted, dump in the cereal and stir to combine.  Scrape into your Pammed pan and flatten out.  I get my hand a little bit wet with water to prevent too much sticking and smoosh the top of my treats down flat.  Now, I'll be honest, with this much butter, things are already less sticky and a hair more greasy than normal, but whatever.

I thought about topping my treats with a sprinkling of French sea salt (yeah, that's how I roll), but opted instead to leave one batch plain, and to top the other with butterscotch and chocolate chips.  I thought kids might balk at the salt and these are for a children's hospital fundraiser and I thought there was a decent chance kids might be eating them.

Next time around since we weren't wild about the overly sweet butterscotch chips, we're thinking peanut butter and chocolate.  Luckily, SK already thought of that as well.  I think I'll stick to the RKT recipe and then add a thin layer of the peanut butter and chocolate toppings rather than much with all that corn syrup though.

S'more Pie

While watching Alex's Day Off this weekend, she made a birthday cake with marshmallow frosting. Marshmallow frosting! That set me off on this s'more pie spiral that I couldn't get out of until I posted about it.
I realize this is not new, and that there are probably a million 236,000 recipes out there for s'more pie, but this is what I was thinking, so therefore it's mine.

Graham cracker crust (obvi)
Layer of chocolate ganache
Chocolate mousse (maybe with chocolate chips; maybe with those chocolate covered graham crackers; maybe just the mousse)
Marshmallow (or the marshmallow frosting) - blow torched to perfection

Make the ganache and pour it into the crust (this is how I like my banana cream pies too, fyi). Let sit so the ganache can firm up a bit. Make the mousse and then layer that on top of the ganachey crust. Let sit in the fridge while you make the marshmallow. Top with the marshmallow and let sit to firm up a bit, then blow torch and serve.
All the flavor of camping (minus the smoke and dirt), with none of the packing of gear.

If you want more direction than I just offered, give this one a whirl. (and fair enough, that pie crust looks pretty easy to make; I'm thinking you should go with the salted butter though, since a little bit of salt with sugar = awesome.)
I recommend a darker chocolate since I think a huge slab of sugary milk chocolate, sugary marshmallow and sugary pie crust might be a bit much. Think about how small s'mores are people. Sure, we can all eat three of them, but there is time in between chomps and the making is part of the fun. Trust me and go a little more grown up with richer flavors versus pure sugar.

Sweet Potatoes + Marshmallows =\= Thanksgiving

Sweet potatoes and marshmallows are a classic. Many homes feature this tasty combo at least once a year, right next to the turkey, who also features about once a year, the poor dear. But is this a dessert or a side dish? Having only had it once or twice, always at someone else's home since my family looks down it's snobby little foodie nose at this dish, I have to vote for dessert. That said, I bring you Delicious Inspiration's Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Marshmallow Frosting and yes you read that right. * chomp *

Sweet Potato Cupcakes:
1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground clove
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup oil
1/4 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sweet potato puree

Marshmallow Frosting:
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, softened
1 cup marshmallow creme
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk, more if needed

Cupcakes:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line or grease 12 muffin cups.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat together the sugar, oil, milk and vanilla. Stir in sweet potato puree. Add in the flour mixture and stir until just incorporated.

Spoon batter into muffin cups and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until done in center. Remove from oven and let cupcakes cool on a wire rack.

Marshmallow Frosting:
In a small bowl, beat together butter, marshmallow creme and vanilla. Gradually add in sugar and beat until well blended. Stir in milk. If frosting is too thick, add more milk 1 teaspoon at a time.

Yields 12 cupcakes.

Deconstructed S'More

Who knew how easy it was to make marshmallows? I remember watching Ina do it once, so I hunted down her recipe and added my own Girl Scout flair.

Homemade Graham Cracker Coated Marshmallows
3 packages unflavored gelatin
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 packages of Graham Crackers, crushed into fine crumbs (or Confectioners' sugar for dusting if you're going traditional)

Combine the gelatin and 1/2 cup of cold water in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and allow to sit while you make the syrup.

Line a glass 8x12 pan with parchment or wax paper to allow for easy removal. Sprinkle one half of the crushed graham crumbs on the bottom.

Meanwhile, combine the sugar, corn syrup, salt, and 1/2 cup water in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Raise the heat to high and cook until the syrup reaches 240 degrees F on a candy thermometer. Remove from the heat.

With the mixer on low speed, slowly pour the sugar syrup into the dissolved gelatin. Put the mixer on high speed and whip until the mixture is very thick, about 15 minutes. Add the vanilla and mix thoroughly.

Pour the marshmallow batter into the glass pan on top of the cracker crumbs and smooth the top of the mixture with damp hands. Sprinkle on the rest of the crumbs. Allow to dry uncovered at room temperature overnight. I have yet to figure out how to get the crumbs from going soft, but the flavor is still awesome.

Remove the marshmallows from the pan and cut into squares. Roll the sides of each piece carefully in the crumbs left on the bottom of the pan. Store uncovered at room temperature.

Drinking Chocolate
Okay, this is going to be tricky as I have no idea what I did. I broke up and used half of a Cost Plus 82% dark chocolate bar; 2 Scharffen Berger semisweet bars (2 oz. each); and half of a TJ's milk chocolate bar. I think I had a total of 8 oz of chocolate but you could easily grab a 12 oz bag of semisweet morsels (the good stuff - no Hershey's please) and go to town. I had this over low heat and once it began to melt, I began adding 2% milk very slowly, stirring thoroughly between additions. I'd guess that I added around two cups of milk. Be careful here - as Quinn learned, it's really easy to break a ganache if you're not careful, and with the first few additions of milk this is really just ganache with milk instead of cream. I added a dash of cinnamon and a tsp or so of vanilla extract, stirred well and poured into small sake cups to serve alongside a few of the marshmallows. Taste it along the way before you serve it; you'll know when you like it.
** Update **
And the salt! I forgot about the pinch of sea salt.