The Million-Dollar Rice Krispies S’mores Recipe
The fiery summers that California has had over the last decade give me an existential sense of doom.
Cate-Blanchett-as-Galadriel Voice:
The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was, is lost, for none now live who remember it.
This year, though, it’s different. People on the Central Coast are complaining the sun has left us. It’s so cold, so unusual, they say.
Where’s the light? The “May Gray” morphed into even a grayer “June Gloom” and it’s taking the youth, and the newcomers, by surprise.
Us old-timers on the Central Coast remember.
It’s a cliché to bring up the Mark Twain quote, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” But it’s true! When I lived in the City, I’d watch the fog swirl through the streets like a ghost hand in a cartoon. I had a summer anorak.
I remember the goosebumps on my arms at the end-of-school-year swim parties, 65 degrees under the marine layer. I remember hoping, “Please, just one day of sun!” On the rare mornings with blue sky and sunshine, I felt the wonder of Dorothy walking into Oz.
We should be having cold summers; it’s a return to normal.
Even so, I’m eyeing a trip to L.A., Hawaii, Sacramento — anywhere to get some sun!
While I can’t run away at the moment, I can elicit some summer feelings in the kitchen.
My hot June epiphany came when I spied a plate of Rice Krispie treats in a cafe, with a slick of chocolate on top. I thought of the combination of starch, marshmallow, and chocolate that makes s’mores.
What if I brought graham crackers to the chocolatey marshmallowy treat — and brûlée’d the surface for a charred flavor?
I’m not the first person to think of this, but I avoided researching recipes. I wanted to see what I could come up with on my own.
What I came up with was very, very good.
You will need:
1 sleeve of Graham crackers
2-3 T Butter
Pinch of salt
2 T to 1/4 cup malted milk powder
1 bag of full-sized marshmallows
1 box of rice cereal
1 t Vanilla
1 cup semisweet or bittersweet Chocolate (chunks, or chips, or chopped)
1 bag of mini marshmallows
A 9x13 inch pan, well-buttered
I don’t need to tell you the mechanics of how to make Rice Krispy Treats. Find any recipe you like.
I like this one in the New York Times. It asks you to brown the butter, but since I wanted the focus on the S’more flavor, I only melted it, which will save you a little time. Hold off on proceeding until you’ve toasted your grahams (below).
Crumble a sleeve of graham crackers into a bowl, making both little crumbs and also larger pieces (no bigger than a nickel).
Toss the crumbs with a couple tablespoons of melted butter.
Add a small pinch of salt and enough malted milk powder and toss again to coat it all. Use anywhere from a couple tablespoons to 1/4 cup of the malted milk powder. It adds sweetness, umami, and texture.
Spread the crumble on a baking sheet and bake it at 350 degrees between 5-10 minutes, until it smells toasty. When you pull it out, the crumbles will be a little soft, but they’ll crisp up as they cool.
As the crumble cools, make the Rice Krispie Treats in a big cook pot, or in the microwave per your recipe.
After you’ve stirred the Rice Krispies into the cooking pot, here’s where you deviate:
Add 3/4 of the graham cracker crumbles and stir into the treat mixture. Reserve the remaining 1/4 of the crumbles for the top.
Give the mixture a minute to cool, but not get hard.
Add about a cup of semisweet chocolate pieces. You want the chocolate to get a little melty, but not turn to sauce or merge completely with the marshmallow. Don’t worry if it does; it’ll be good anyway.
Butter your hands and press — I do mean press — the mixture into the prepared baking pan.
Press the rest of the graham cracker crumble into the top. You could stir it all in, but I like having a distinct strata of flavor and texture.
To gild the lily, sprinkle the top with mini-marshmallows and toast the minis. I used a butane torch. You could also use a broiler but DON’T TAKE YOUR EYES OFF IT.
Let the finished pan rest — if you can — until it’s firmed up and is room temperature.
This dessert is élite.
The graham cracker crumble, with the malted milk and salt, adds a varied texture and a deepening of flavor. The chocolate brings a bitterness and some acidity. The soft, burnt layer of marshmallow fluff puts it over the top, both for the texture and for evoking the s’more experience.
I must emphasize how good these are. It will conjure a little summer no matter how many clouds come your way.
Soundtrack:
“Stereo Driver”
Album: Soul, PRESENT
Artist: Q
This will make you think of the Eighties, sure, but every time this pops up on my “2023 Favorites” playlist, it puts me in the right now, only creamier and dreamier. Top tier talent.
Viewing:
To Be or Not to Be, 1942.
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch.
Carole Lombard is gorgeous and brilliant, Jack Benny is a self-serious goofball, and Ernst Lubitsch is righteously pissed at the Nazis. The balancing act of comedy and horror is incredible. Plus, the joke’s on me for not knowing what a dreamboat ingenue Robert Stack was in the 1940s.