Crispy Treat Recipe

I’ve always loved rice crispy treats.  My Mom used to make little nests with us at Easter using rice crispies covered in chocolate, so one day I tried to make them with my children.  I didn’t have a recipe and they were OK, but then last Christmas we tried to make a recipe I’d found in a magazine which used Fruity Pebbles cereal instead and my kids were hooked.  Every child I’ve ever fed them to has loved them.

The Recipe – It’s super easy!
Melt a stick of butter with a 10oz bag of mini marshmallows over a low heat, stirring continuously or else they will burn on the bottom of the pan. 

Add an 11oz box of Fruity Pebbles or any other cereal your children love.

Mix well and put into a baking pan lined with waxed paper. If you try to work with the crispy treats when they are warm they just stick to your hands, and everything else. Leave them in a big heap for about 20 minutes until they are cool and less sticky.

For the hearts below I pressed the crispy treats into the pan until they were about an inch thick, but sometimes I need them thicker if I’m making a 3-D shape.  Press a cookie cutter into the crispy treat to get an outline of the shape.  Unless you are using very sharp metal cutters, they probably won’t go all the way through, so use a knife to cut along the outline.

 
Anything you can make out of cookie dough you can usually make out of a crispy treat, but less detailed designs work best.
For the hearts below, which I used for my son’s preschool party, I inserted a lollipop stick into the heart so it would be easier for the children to hold while they were decorating and eating the crispy treat.

Then I dipped the hearts in red candy melts.  You have to push the crispy treats together quite hard so that they are firm enough to be dipped.  Also make sure you get the candy melt over the stick slightly, so that it holds the heart in place.  You can also use a basting brush to brush the candy coating onto the crispy treat.

Make sure you follow the melting directions on the back of the candy melt package.  The first time I used them I didn’t and over cooked the candy.  It went hard and was unusable.  I now know that if it goes hard you can add a couple of tablespoons of Crisco and it will go liquid again.  I usually do that anyway as it makes the candy melts more liquid and easier to use, and also you use less because they are quite expensive.

Then I sprinkled pink sugar on a few…….

…..heart sprinkles on some others……..

…..and conversation hearts on the others. My son’s class loved them.