We were going to skip this week’s recipe because we had been traveling and were so busy. But, my daughter convinced me to make these bars and I’m so glad she did. These were a big winner at my house! Who would have thought that Rice Krispies could so easily become such yummy candy? This also made a delicious birthday cake for my husband’s birthday. He liked it so much he went back for seconds. These tasty treats are going to disappear from my house before I have a chance to store them.
We started out by making the caramelized Rice Krispies, so they had a chance to cool before we topped the bars. At first we didn’t think the cereal added to the sugar water was going to do anything. But, we followed the great directions Dorie provided and lo-and-behold we saw white streaks in the bottom of the pan and then all of a sudden the cereal started to caramelize and smoke. Had we known how easy it was to turn Rice Krispies into candy we would have been doing this ages ago. We had to keep from eating it before topping the bars.
Next we made the sugar cookie base. This was simple. The hardest part was the fight it put up when we tried to spread it in the pan. But, as Dorie suggested, we kept at it and won the battle. I finally pulled out a metal offset spatula and it worked like a charm. We turned the temperature down to 350 on these and cooked them for approx. 17 minutes. The recipe called for 375 degrees and 22 minutes, but knowing my oven we knew this had to be adjusted.
As soon as we pulled these from the oven we scattered bittersweet chocolate on top and stuck them back in the oven for about a minute. Then we pulled out our trusty offset spatula again and spread out the chocolate. As soon as we were done we sprinkled the caramelized Rice Krispies on top and allowed it all to cool. As soon as they were set we sang Happy Birthday and dug in. It's a good thing I cut them into 2” squares as the recipe suggested or the whole thing would have been gone in minutes. This way we will have them for a day or two.
This easy recipe can be found in Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking Chez Moi on page 324. We will definitely be making this one again and again!
