Marshmallow Crispie Cakes

When these were first sold in Brunei a few years ago, Ibu tried her very hardest to duplicate them at home, since they were relatively expensive and we, being kids, ate a lot of it. But because of a lack of marshmallows being sold, Ibu tried making her own marshmallows using a recipe she had in one of her old old old cookbooks. But marshmallows, it seems, are tricky things to make and she never succeeded making them properly.

We've forgotten about the Rice Crispie Bars (or whatever they're called) as the years have passed by, but on their recent trip to UK, we saw them selling these again and the "passion was reignited", heh. :P They are *very* expensive in UK, so Ibu decided to try making them at home again. Luckily, marshmallows are being sold in SupaSave now, so that should make her - or rather my! - job easier. So here we go!

What you need:
250g bag of toffees - substituted with 200g white chocolate
50g butter, plus extra for greasing
45mL / 3 tablespoons milk
115g marshmallows - used only a 100g bag
175g crisped rice cereal

What you do:

1. Lightly brush a 8 x 13in roasting pan with a little melted butter. Line with baking paper, leaving two sides overhanging, and brush with more butter.
   
2. Put the toffees, butter and milk in a pan and heat gently, stirring until the toffees have melted.
3. Add the marshmallows and crisped rice cereal and stir until well-mixed and the marshmallows have melted.
4. Spoon the mixture into the prepared roasting pan, level the surface and leave to set.
5. When cool and hard, cut into squares, remove from the pan and place into paper cups to serve. We cut them into longer bars and wrapped them individually in more baking paper.

As you can see, it's a very easy recipe to duplicate, and there are a lot of recipes for it on the Internet. We bought the mini-marshmallows, which came in pink and white colours, which explains the pinkish colour of the bars.

I'm no longer too big a fan of these, but when I tasted them, I really do think they taste very similar to the commercial version. It seems that I made them a bit differently than Ibu expected though, since the commercial ones have a layer of white chocolate on the bottom, not mixed into the Rice Crispies. Also, she said I didn't compact them as ... er, compactly as I should have, so the bars kind of fell apart easily. Ah well, it'll come with practice, I suppose, since Ibu wants me to make another "proper" batch once this batch finishes.

Oh yes, you would want to store these in an air-tight container, preferably in the fridge, since these are much better if eaten cold. ;) Because we wrapped them individually, the problem of them sticking together was solved. Otherwise, you might want to place them in layers with cling wrap in between.

When proper adults tasted these, they found it too sweet, but I heard no such complaint from the kids, haha. I was actually planning to add in a layer of chocolate on the top, but was worried that it would be too sweet. Ah well...

Quote of the day: Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fibre, not for the toy.