Brown Butter Rice Krispie Treats
Marshmallow cereal bars made with nutty browned butter and a pinch of sea salt, cooled in the tin for 30 minutes before cutting.
Photograph credit: rice krispie treats by Karl Baron · CC BY 2.0 · Flickr
Before You Start
Take the butter off the heat as soon as it smells nutty.
Use fresh marshmallows.
Press lightly into the tin.
Making Brown Butter Rice Krispie Treats
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Grease a 20 cm square tin and line with baking paper.
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Melt the butter in a large pan over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring, until golden and smelling of hazelnuts. Pour into a bowl straight away.
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Return the pan to low heat, add the butter back with the marshmallows and the 1/2 tsp salt and stir until melted and smooth. Stir in the vanilla.
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Fold in the cereal with a greased spatula until coated.
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Press lightly into the tin, sprinkle with the flaky salt and cool for 30 minutes before cutting into 16.
What's Going On Here
Browning the butter is the one move that makes these different from the childhood original. Butter that has been cooked past melting until the milk solids turn golden and smell of hazelnuts adds a deep, toasty, caramel flavour to the bars, without altering anything else about the recipe. It is a five-minute detour with a large payoff.
Melt the butter over medium heat, stirring, as it foams and spits and then settles. Watch for the moment the white milk solids at the bottom turn the colour of a hazelnut and the smell changes from creamy to nutty. Pour it into a bowl at once, because it goes from brown to burnt in seconds, even off the heat. The marshmallows go into the warm butter and melt in minutes.
Use fresh marshmallows. Old ones, which have dried and hardened, make rigid, tough treats. The bars should be soft and chewy. Fold in the cereal gently with a greased spatula, press lightly into the tin with greased fingers, and do not compact the mixture, or the bars will be hard.
A generous pinch of flaky sea salt over the top makes the sweetness taste more complex. Cool for 30 minutes before cutting into squares with an oiled knife.
After You've Cooked It
Keeps in an airtight container for 3 days.
What to Serve Alongside
- Cold milk
- Coffee
- Hot chocolate
- Fresh fruit
Still Wondering?
How long does Brown Butter Rice Krispie Treats take to make?
10 minutes of preparation and 10 minutes of cooking, plus 30 minutes of cooling, so allow 50 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 16.
Nutrition per Serving
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked.
First published ; last changed .
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