Not to brag or anything, but I’m a pretty good cook. I’ve made incredibly complicated dishes including Indian dinners that I literally spent days preparing. Indian food has many spices and many steps and I wish I had some right now, now that I think of it. Mmm, garlic naan…
I’ve also made many elaborate desserts including my own wedding cake which ended up taking a very very long time and involving many pans and days of work and so many gold dragees…
I have a friend in her 80s who says she isn’t able to cook anymore; she just can’t get it all together to make anything. She’s also very worried about her memory but I tell her that my memory is so bad that I won’t even know who I am when I’m her age.
But I usually feel like I’m still pretty good at cooking, except the other day when I attempted to make Rick Krispie Treats.
The Rice Krispie Treats recipe calls for three ingredients: 6 c. Rice Krispies, a bag of marshmallows, and 3 Tbsp of butter.
I made the treats about e a month or so ago, melting the butter in a saucepan and then adding the marshmallows and mixing it up til they melted and then pouring in the rice krispies. But I decided I needed to mix the butter and marshmallows for a while so that they were sufficiently melted, and the result was dry Rice Krispie Treats.
So when I set out to make them again, the morning of Sept. 25th, I read the recipe on my phone and decided to try them in the microwave instead. I put the bag of marshmallows and the butter in a big bowl, covered it, and microwaved it for two minutes, when I was supposed to stir and microwave for another minute.
But after two minutes they seemed completely melted so I added the Rice Krispies and mixed them all together and put them in the pan.
This is the result.
They were waaay too soft. How did I mess up Rice Krispie Treats, a treat that a child could make, and that I’m sure I made as a child?
Because, a ten ounce bag of marshmallows, not a 16-oz bag. It didn’t even occur to me to glance at the bag size instructions. It said that you could used about 40 marshmallows instead of the 10-oz bag and then I noticed that I had an almost-empty bag of marshmallows in the pantry, I’m sure left over from when I made the way too crunchy ones previously.
Now I’m looking at the recipe on my phone again and it clearly states “1 package (10 oz, about 40) marshmallows.”
I’m going to blame it on the fact that I’m not at my best in the morning. Not so great at reading things as thoroughly as I’d like to be able to do.
The Rice Krispies didn’t look bad, they were just very very soft. I tentatively cut one and it tasted fine, just incredibly sweet, of course. I tried to come up with a way of salvaging them so I dumped in the small amount of Rice Krispies left in the box – it was maybe a cup or two. I crunched them over the top and then folded the two ends together and smooshed them into the pan again. They were satisfyingly easy to smoosh.
But then I had gooshy Rice Krispie Treats with a thin layer of rice krispies in the middle. I fixated on what might make them less sweet, and the only thing that popped into my head was pickles.
For sure, pickles would cut the sweetness, but I knew it was a stupid idea. The only thing I could think to spread on top of Rice Krispie Treats would be a nice layer of chocolate or maybe chocolate peanut butter, but of course either of those would make them worse.
I called Bev, who makes Rice Krispie Treats almost all the time, and she assured me that pickles wouldn’t be a good idea. She suggested adding more Rice Krispies but I was all out. She didn’t have any creative solution to my problem so I hung up and tried another one and maybe it was OK. Just a small bite of one would probably sent Kevin into a diabetic coma however, and I didn’t want to eat the entire pan myself.
I ran the pickle idea past Amy and she started sending me many frantic texts saying stuff like DON’T EAT THEM and I HAVE SOME IN MY FREEZER I CAN GIVE YOU. And also RICE KRISPIE TREATS WITH PICKLES ON THEM WILL TASTE LIKE RICE KRISPIE TREATS WITH PICKLES.
She brought over her frozen Rice Krispie Treats which were delicious, not too soft, not too crunchy, and not full of pickles.
I left my over-marshmallowed Rice Krispie Treats out on the counter and eventually cut them into big pieces after a day or so and they were still completely soft. I tossed them out in the yard and I’m sure some poor hungry raccoon or possum or rabbit (do rabbits eat Rice Krispie Treats?) or maybe a deer or a bird had a nice meal. Hopefully whoever ate them didn’t have blood sugar issues.
There’s not a crumb left.
I will probably attempt some Rice Krispie Treats in the future and for sure I won’t put in too many marshmallows, and maybe I won’t over-cook them. Then again, maybe I can just convince Bev to visit again. I haven’t seen her since the beginning of the pandemic and I do miss her, not just her baked goods.
Ok then,
Mrs. Really into October already Hughes.