Chocolate Cereal Blocks Etc

The classic Rice Krispies cereal treat has been around for decades. Over time, I’ve noticed these cereal yummies have undergone two noticeable changes:

• Microwave directions for melting butter and marshmallows, replacing the kettle method
• Proliferation of pre-made packages

Chocolate Cereal Blocks Etc is my frequent deviation from the classic cereal treat, which I most recently prepared for a picnic. Received several raves, so I said I’d send out the recipe. Wellll, in the midst of writing it up, it started shaping up to be another blog article recipe. This recipe uses (in order) butter, caramel vanilla marshmallows and chocolate rice cereal for the cereal blocks. The ganachy icing has peanut butter meltable candies and chocolate frosting. For more details and ideas about the icing, read A Convenient Ganachey Icing.

The classic Rice Krispie blocks recipe uses 10 ounces of marshmallows, which throws a monkey wrench into cereal bar recipes if using Kraft novelty flavor marshmallows. (Curses! Kraft used to put out the novelty flavors in 10-ounce packages, but they’ve gotten greedy and now put them out as 8-ouncers!)

For convenience of those who want to make the classic blocks, I’ve pasted the very simple cooks.com recipe (printer-friendly). Deviation info follows.

CRISPY TREATS (MICROWAVE)
Printed from COOKS.COM
________________________________________
1/4 c. butter
4 c. miniature marshmallows
6 c. Rice Krispies cereal

Substitute 40 large marshmallows.

Butter microwave bowl big enough to hold all ingredients; microwave marshmallows 2 minutes then stir. Microwave again 1 minute. Stir in and mix well the Rice Krispies. Butter hands and put this mixture in a cake pan, flatten, cool and cut into squares.

My deviations from the cooks.com recipe:

• Primary ingredients:
• 3 tablespoons butter instead of ¼ cup (4 tablespoons)
• 10 oz. bag of Kraft caramel/vanilla marshmallows
• 8 cups Cocoa Pebbles. Key concept is chocolate rice cereal.
• Pan: I lined the pan with wax paper that overlapped two opposite sides. I used spray oil on hands instead of butter.
• Icing: I microwave-melted 4 ounces of Wilton Peanut Butter meltable candies (available at craft stores), stirred in 4 ounces of spreadable frosting, and microwaved some more, but using lower power. I poured the warm icing over the cereal mixture and squeegeed (using old but clean tool) it into the crevices.
• Yield: The cooks.com recipe says to cut the batch into 24 pieces. I cut my batch into 48, although some came out a bit smaller than others. Your sizes might vary also, depending on how well you wield your knife. :-)

4-ingredient Raspberry Chocolate Fudge

This recipe is a variation of the Convenient Fudge recipe that I published nearly a year ago. Caramel, peanuts, and chocolate were in the fudge, although I omitted brand IDs. This time, I'm calling out brand names and products—Duncan Hines' Frosting Creations mix of raspberry powder {"Flavor MIx") and the base frosting ("Frosting Starter"), Kraft marshmallows, and Wilton meltable candies (chocolate this time).

I'd run across various complaints about the Duncan Hines (DH) base frosting. Bakers loved the powder, but complained about frosting sliding off cakes and not having the characteristics of normal frostings. Well, because I had two of the base frosting and two of the flavor packets, I thought making fudge might be a good way to avoid cake disasters. The results were very nice for taste and mouthfeel.

From past experience with chocolate chips and Wilton candies, it seems the Wilton candies have a lower melting temperature or density than chips. The results seem less hard than when using chips. Using both DH AND Wilton resulted in fudge that was quite soft. The Other prefers more fudge firmness, which is doable by refrigerating the fudge instead of keeping it out at room temperature.
My pixstrip shows images for utensils, ingredients, mixing, and post-mixing. (The images inside the dashed section show preliminary preparation before the microwaving.)
Utensils (spray oil being a bridge from utensils to processing)

• Large mixing bowl
• Large cooking spoon
• 2-cup measuring cup or jar
• Butter knife (for mixing flavor powder into base frosting)
• 8" x 8" pan, prepared with spray oil
• Cooky spatula (for cutting fudge into pieces)

Ingredients

• 16 oz. Duncan Hines Frosting Creations base frosting
• Duncan Hines Frosting Creations raspberry flavor packet
• 12 oz. Wilton chocolate meltable candies
• 1 1/2 cups Kraft marshmallows or 15 large marshmallows (one of my few instances of brand loyalty)

Instructions

1. Using a butter knife, make a deep hole into the frosting and stir the powder into it.
2. Melt chips or other meltable candy the large mixing bowl in the microwave oven, using reduced power. Check about a minute or so for about two rounds of heating.
3. Add the mixed frosting to the bowl. If necessary, microwave another minute or so until you can easily blend the ingredients with the spoon.
4. Add marshmallows to the bowl. If necessary, microwave another minute or so until you can easily blend the ingredients with the spoon.
5. Blend the ingredients with the spoon.
6. Pour ingredients into the spray-oil prepared pan.
7. Refrigerate for no more than two hours. (If longer, the fudge could be difficult to cut.)
8. Cut into 64 pieces (8 x 8) or fewer. (FYI, the paper cups are available at craft stores and baking supply outlets.)

Note: Instead of waiting 2 hours and cutting the fudge block with a knife, you can wait 1 1/2 hours for cooling, then use a cooky spatula edge, pressing down. The pic shows the 8 x 8 fudge grid and spatula. If edges of middle fudge pieces look a little warped, lightly shape them.

October 29—Fudge variation: Made a mint fudge, using the mint white chocolate powder instead of respberry, and Wilton green meltables instead of chcolate meltables. Raves all around!