As promised yesterday, I am back today with a delicious recipe and what a recipe it is!! This small batch recipe is crispy, gooey, salty, sweet and incredibly moreish.
I don't know about you, but Rice Krispy Squares have always been incredibly popular in my home. When my children were growing up they were a quick and easy treat for me to make for my family.
My then husband loved them as well and there would be many a night that I would be making up a batch for the family to enjoy. My children always enjoyed a special treat prior to going to bed. We called it a night snack.
Rice Krispy Bars and Mom's Quick Cinnamon Rolls were very popular. I didn't mind making either one because they could both be made very quickly and easily.
Sometimes I would make either Chocolate or Peanut Butter Fudge. And still other times they would simply have toast.
As they got older they would love to help and Always, ALWAYS loved to clean lick the saucepan after we made the rice krispy treats. Good times and simple pleasures!
Full recipes of these goodies are no longer on my menu of things to enjoy, unless I have family over of course, but with Covid you know how much that happens. Zippidy do dah!
Hopefully that will change soon!
I have been in the process of down-sizing a lot of my recipes to suit my smaller sized family. I may even write a small sized family cookbook. We'll see how it goes.
Sweet and salty is a flavor combination many, many people love. There is just something about it that tickles many fancies.
I had found this recipe in a cookbook by Mary Younkin, entitled The Weekday Lunches & Breakfasts Cookbook, but it made a huge 9 by 13 inch pan of squares. Far too many for me to cope with, and I hate waste.
I had actually never made the full batch of these because one, it made so many and B, my husband in the UK couldn't eat anything like this.
I decided this week to small batch it because B, that husband is no longer in my life and two, I like things like this, and why not! Just because you are one or even two people, there is no reason for you not to enjoy some of these simple yet tasty things in life.
In downsizing the recipe I noted a few discrepancies in her original recipe, one being the metric weight of the cereal. She said 568g of the cereal and I can tell you for a fact that a LARGE box of this cereal only weighs 680g.
Its a good thing I always measure and weigh all of my ingredients out in both linear and metric. That's so I can be sure that I am giving you the proper measurements.
I do try to get it right most of the time, but even I am not perfect! And I have to tell you I don't mind people pointing out any discrepancies to me either, or spelling mistakes.
I actually find it quite helpful. Everyone needs more than one set of eyes! Constructive criticism is always welcome!
I have always been a huge fan of the sweet and salty combination. I think most North Americans are. I love to eat milk chocolate with plain salted potato chips.
Peanut butter and Jam are also a real favorite with me. And when you think of it, sweet and sour chicken is also a sweet and salty or savory combination.
I have been craving Chinese food for a few weeks now. I may have to bite the bullet and order myself a Chinese meal from the local Chinese place in town, but back to the squares.
With these you get plenty of crunch and salty from the use of both salted pretzel twists and roasted salted peanuts.
Make sure you use the smaller pretzel twists. The peanuts also add a lovely nutty balance to the mix along with the salty.
The sweet and the gooey come from the use of marshmallows. I use mini white marshmallows, but you could use the equivalent weight in the larger marshmallows, just cut them into quarters first.
White mini marshmallows were something that was very difficult to come by in the UK. You could find plenty of whites and pinks, but it was not very often you could find just whites.
Here in Canada/North America, they come both in whites and in multi-colored. My youngest daughter always loved the squares that I would make at Christmas with butterscotch chips, peanut butter and the colored Marshmallows.
We called them Amanda's Squares because she loved them so much. I wonder does she make them for her two children? I suspect she does.
She's a Nurse Practitioner now, specializing in children's oncology. You have to have a special heart to work in that field.
I could not do it myself because my heart would break every day. I could not be a nurse period. Same reason. I did try candy striping when I was a teenager. It was not for me.
Back in those days if you were a girl you could really only be one of three things if you wanted a career. Teacher, Nurse, Secretary.
Its nice that girls now have so many more options open to them. Me, I never really wanted to be more than a mother and a wife at the end of the day, and I got to do both of those. Call me satisfied.
I am a nurturer and always have been. My sister is also. We are very much alike.
Anyways, make these squares. If you are a fan of salty, sweet, crunchy, gooey, then you will love them.
Its really as simple as that. Quick, easy, scrumptious. If you want the full sized measurements to make the full batch. Just ask. I am more than happy to oblige.
Sweet & Salty Krispy Bars
Yield: 9 squares
Prep time: 10 Mininactive time: 2 HourTotal time: 2 H & 10 M
Crunchy, gooey, nutty, sweet, salty. This small batch recipe is a guaranteed winner!
Ingredients
- 3 TBS butter
- 4 cups (200g) mini marshmallows, divided
- 2 3/4 cups (80g) crisp rice cereal
- 1 cup (55g) pretzel twists, broken, plus more to decorate the top (optional)
- 1/2 cup (55g) salted roasted peanuts
Instructions
- Have ready an 8 inch square baking tin that you have buttered and lined with buttered parchment paper. (I butter the pan so that the paper stays in place.)
- Melt the butter in a largish saucepan over medium heat. Add 3 cups (150g) of the marshmallows and stir until they begin to melt. Once the whole mixture is melted and amalgamated remove from the heat.
- Stir in the pretzels, peanuts and cereal, mixing everything together well. Stir in the additional 1 cup of marshmallows.
- Scrape the mixture into the pan immediately and using slightly buttered pans gently press into place. Top with additional pretzel twists if desired.
- Leave to set for a few hours. Cut into squares to serve. Store any leftovers in an airtight container.
For a 9x13, do I double all the ingredients? Thanks for sharing this yummy recipe.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely Anna! You are very welcome! xoxo
DeleteYum! I love sweet and salty flavours too. I will be making this recipe, thank you and I'm glad your getting to make things you like for yourself again 😊 x
ReplyDeleteThanks so much! I hope that you will make them. They are really good! xoxo
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