Rice Crispie Treat DEATH MATCH Trial Recipe: Nutella

In my 34 years of life I have discovered four rules for rice crispie treat perfection:

1. Use real butter - not margarine.  It just tastes better.  Real butter always tastes better.  (Bonus tip: use a bit of butter to grease your pan.  The spray stuff tastes funny.)
2. Use fresh marshmallows.  That half-eaten bag you've had at the back of your pantry for the past six months?  Not a good idea.
3. Low and slow is the name of the game.  Don't be tempted to crank the heat up to high to melt the butter and marshmallows.  Doing so will give your treats a teeth-chipping brick-like consistency.  Yum.
4. Don't overcook the marshmallows - get them off the heat as soon as they're melted.  In fact, I pull mine off the heat when there are still a few little lumps left.  This is why I use mini marshmallows - they melt faster and more evenly.  Cooking them for too long can also make them too hard.  (Think about making candy and what happens the longer you boil that sugar.)

Follow these tips religiously and you'll have heavenly rice crispie treats every time.

Unless you're a Roper cousin - in which case, ignore the above.  Margarine, old marshmallows, high heat, and the longer the better.  Trust me on this.

Why the lecture?  Today I accidentally broke rule number four.  In my defense, I had a million things going on while I made the treats.  Not that I planned it that way.  But for some reason all four of my children decided to have some sort of mini-crisis, in sequential order, while I was melting the marshmallows.  The treats are not that bad - they're just not as light and fluffy as we're used to around these here parts.  No worries, though; a spin in the microwave for 10 seconds or so sets everything alright.

This week, in my quest for ETERNAL FAME AND GLORY, I decided to make Nutella Rice Crispie Treats.  There are a ton of recipes for this out on the interwebs, but I decided to just go for the simplest: add a cup of Nutella to the melted marshmallows.

Verdict?  Pretty good.  Not fabulous, but certainly not ordinary.  I didn't mix quite as evenly as I should have, so there are parts that have more chocolate than others.  These parts are yummy.  I wish there was more of a Nutella flavor all throughout.  (Perhaps the flavor will intensify over night.  I'll have to investigate this tomorrow.)  If I made these again I would definitely add more than a cup of Nutella.

And so my search continues.  Next week will probably be something a bit more fancy, since Lance is hosting a LAN party at our house.  Hey, it takes a lot to impress a bunch of grown men playing video games in the basement all hours of the night.  Time to step things up!