Friday, February 22, 2013

The Thing I'd Be Most Embarrassed to Serve You

I've been making these silly things once or twice a year for like 10 years. It's basically a food-based rice crispy treat, made with peanut butter (the food part), sugar (the treat part) and a combination of crispy rice and corn flakes (the crispy part). Essentially, it's like making your own chewy cereal bar, with enough peanut butter to hold you over until your next meal. I'm sort of surprised we haven't outgrown them.

Quick sidebar:  sometimes when I type C-R-I-S-P-Y there's a typo and it comes out C-R-I-P-S-Y, which sounds  like the sort of like a disease you might hear about on Downton Abbey:

COUSIN ISOBEL
The Cripsy will surely kill him if we don't act soon.

DOWAGER COUNTESS
Cripsy? From the look of things, the gentleman has broken his neck and is already dead.

Anyhoo, I don't make these sweet little snacks unless we're going somewhere. I used to make them for our spring thaw camping trips to Moab. We'd go every year for a few days when the ground in Telluride still had a couple of feet of snow and the temps in Moab were a pleasant 70 to 80. Peanut Butter Smackerels are totally pedestrian, but make for an excellent little hold-over snack. Here they are:

Peanut Butter Smackerels
Print recipe only here

Makes 4-5 dozen one-inch square pieces

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1 1/2 cups unprocessed peanut butter*
2 cups crisp rice cereal
4 cups corn flakes
2 t vanilla
pinch salt

METHOD
In a medium-large mixing bowl, combine cereals and salt. Crunch and smash with your hands so the flakes are broken down into smaller pieces.

In a a medium saucepan, combine sugar and corn syrup. Stir over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. Turn off heat and add peanut butter and vanilla. Stir well to combine. Pour over cereals and stir.

Transfer to the prepared baking pan and press down, using a piece of waxed or parchment paper, to distribute evenly. Refrigerate or let cool at room temperature for an hour or so. Turn out onto a cutting board and cut into 1-inch wide strips. Cut into one-inch squares. Can be stored in a ziploc bag or covered container at room temperature, or in the fridge, but they're really hard to chew when cold.


* If you use a processed PB (Jif, Skippy, etc) make sure to cut the amount of sugar in half, down to 1/4 cup.

1 comment:

Aims said...

Ha! My family has been making and eating these for years too, though I have no idea where my Grandma got the recipe from originally. We call them peanut butter squares. To make it even worse, we add a sugary layer of "fudge" (what my brother and I call it, though it in no way resembles actual fudge nor does it contain any chocolate) on top. Certainly not the healthiest thing around, but they sure are delicious. Thanks for sharing your version. :)