For Christmas I received a brand new cooking set from my fabulous parents.  For the past 5 or so years (since college) I’ve been using the same 2 things for cooking: a medium-sized Teflon frying pan and a medium-sized cooking pot with a spout.  They’ve been well-loved and well-abused, and I figured it was about time to get (or, in this case, politely ask for!) a new set.  And boy-howdy, did my awesome parents deliver.

In celebration of my fantastic new culinary gadgets, I decided to make something new for me: rice krispie treats!

How is it I’ve gone this long in my life and never made rice krispie treats before?  Upon consulting my mother, she claimed that they seemed to be the default desert at every part or event I ever attended, so it never made sense for her to make them too (my mom’s default was always cookies).  Not to fear though – that part of my soul where making rice krispie treats was empty is now full of marshmallowy-chocolatey-buttery goodness.  Also I might have diabetes (not really.  yet).

I found the brown butter rice krispie treat recipe from, naturally, Smitten Kitchen, a place you can always trust for excellent eats.  Browned butter?  Say no more, I’m already sold.  But because I also had a hankering for more than melted marshmallows and rice krispies, I added a (well-known, I’m sure) bit of flair – peanut butter!

   

I actually ended up making 2 different versions of the treats.  Since I wasn’t sure of the best way to add the peanut butter, I tried 2 ways.  The first way was mixing the PB in after the rice krispies had already been mixed together, and the second way was melting/mixing the PB in with the melted marshmallows themselves.  There were interesting differences.

Anyway, since I’ve never made these before I thought the process was wonderfully simple and excellently delicious.  According to Deb (of Smitten Kitchen) these actually take more butter than most other recipes, and to me they tasted great; I don’t think I’d try another recipe over this one.  After browning the butter you melt the marshmallows into it, giving it a smooth white look with specks of brown in it.  Honestly it looked a little like gravy, but that’s easy to ignore when you’re eating marshmallows out of the bag the “gravy” came from.

After that, it’s mixing in the rice krispies and melted marshmallows together.  For my first batch, here I globbed a few spoonfuls of peanut butter and used a little extra arm-muscle to do a few more mixing motions.  This first batch turned out awesome – sweet with just the slightest hint of salty peanut butter in the background, soft but still sturdy.  Delicious!

The second batch I made – by mixing the PB in with the melted marshmallows – was also tasty, but the texture was pretty different.  To be fair I think I added more PB to this second batch than the first, but the PB made the final rice krispie treats a bit tough to mix, and a bit tough to chew as well.  Still, I might try this second variation again, but add less peanut butter and see if that makes a real difference.  Also, I pressed on a bunch of mini chocolate chips on the top.  They didn’t stick as well as I was hoping, but they were still delicious. 😀

Verdict?  Heck YES these are worth making!  Easy, cheap, delicious!  And definitely take the extra five minutes to make that brown butter – worth every second!

Brown Butter & PB Rice Krispie Treats

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen.
Yields 1 9×9 pan of treats.

Ingredients:

• 5 oz rice krispies (~ 1/2 12oz box)
• 10 oz marshmallows
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• ~1/4 cup smooth peanut butter

Instructions:

1. Brown the butter in a large pot over medium heat.

2. Turn the heat down to low/warm and dump the marshmallows into the pot.  Melt the marshmallows in the low heat.

3. Dump rice krispies in with the melted marshmallows and gently mix.

4. Gently fold in the PB.

5. Grease a 9×9 pan and press the rice krispies into it (rubber spatula works great!).

6. CONSUME!