Peanut Butter Chocolate Crusted Millionaire’s Rice Crispy Treats

So, one of my favorite things to make now is millionaire’s shortbread. I’ve made it a bunch, and it’s delicious every time. I like to make it in the original style, but sometimes I like to mix it up a bit. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t.

While in the grocery store the other day, I saw some peanut butter and chocolate cereal. Too sugary for breakfast I thought, but wouldn’t that make a great crust for a cookie. (I had recently made these amazing chocolate crusted banana blondies, so crusted cookies were on my mind.) I thought of the millionaire’s shortbread as the cookie to use. And instead of shortbread, why not mix it up even more and try it with rice crispy treats instead of shortbread.

These were all great ideas. So many that they should not have all been in one recipe. Let me explain. Each individual piece was yummy. All together, they were still yummy. And while the rice crispy treats substituted fine for the shortbread, the peanut butter and chocolate crust was too much. There was nothing for the crust to stick on to, so it ended up just falling off.

What I neglected to consider about the other recipe was that blondies are gooey, so they’ll easily stick to the crust while baking. Rice crispy treats are also gooey, but there’s no baking so by the time they come together, they’re pretty solid. There’s no time for the crust to attach. I ended up pulling the crust off and sprinkling it on top. Again, delicious. But a failure of the original concept. A mistake. A delicious, delicious mistake.

If I were to try to make them again, I would try adding something else to stick the crust and the rice crispy treats together. One idea would be to make some extra marshmallow stuff from the crispy treats, but not mix any cereal in with it. That way I could use it to stick the two layers together. Another idea would be to make some extra caramel, and use that to stick the two layers together. Either of these could be a challenge, though, as they need to be done quickly while they’re still sticky. My guess is that I could get it to work with the crust if I used shortbread, instead of rice crispy treats.

I frankensteined the recipe by putting together parts of a few different recipes. Let me know if you try it, and how it works out for you. If you get it to work, let me know what you did differently. I await your delicious triumphs in the comments!

Original Millionaire’s Shortbread recipe courtesy of Allrecipes.com. Rice crispy treats recipe courtesy of RiceKrispies.com. Chocolate peanut butter crust inspired by the chocolate crusted banana blondies from the New York Times.

Ingredients:

For the crust:

1 1/4 cups of butter

200 grams Puffins® Peanut Butter & Chocolate cereal

 

For the rice crispy treats:

3 tablespoons butter

1 10 ounce package marshmallows

6 cups crisp rice cereal

 

For the caramel:

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons corn syrup

1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk

 

For the chocolate topping:

190 grams chocolate

 

Instructions:

To make the crust, start by crushing the cereal into crumbs. There are lots of different ways to do this, but I like to do it the old-fashioned way. Pour the cereal into a large plastic bag and seal it. Just to be safe, put the plastic bag inside another plastic bag and seal that, too. Lay it on the counter and roll over it with a rolling pin. I find it works best if I rotate the bag every so often.

Line a 9 x 13 baking dish with parchment paper and grease it. Melt the butter, mix with the crumbs, and pour into the baking dish. Spread it out until it’s even. Bake for 7 minutes at 375 degrees.

To make the rice crispy treats, follow the recipe at RiceKrispies.com, and press on top of the crust.

To make the caramel, add the butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, and sweetened condensed milk into a saucepan. Cook until it’s boiling. Then reduce heat and stir. Keep stirring for another 4 minutes and remove from heat. Pour over the rice crispy treats and spread evenly.

To make the chocolate topping, break the chocolate into small pieces and put into a microwave safe dish. Microwave for 1 minute and stir. If it’s not a smooth consistency yet, you might have to microwave it a little bit longer (15-20 seconds more should do it). Once it’s smooth, pour over the caramel, and spread evenly.

Chill until firm. Remove from dish, peel away parchment paper, and cut into small squares.

What it looks like before being cut.

Chocolate Crusted Banana Blondies

This was one of the best recipes I made recently. I often read the New York Times for news, but not usually for recipes. If they’re all like this, I may have to rethink that. These were great. There are delicious flavors and a nice set of different textures. Everyone really loved them. No one normally turns down free dessert, but my friends gobbled these up.

At first glance, you might think that they are healthy because of the word “banana”. It’s true, there are bananas in the recipe, and they are great. But these blondies are mostly butter and sugar. Rich, buttery, sweet, delicious, and totally unhealthy butter and sugar. A little butter and sugar is fine. And while a couple of these will also be fine, don’t fool yourself into thinking they’re healthy. I made them a few times, and each time I made them, I took out a little bit more butter to see how it would go. They’re still delicious, and you wouldn’t even know the difference.

I also made these gluten-free. It was actually pretty simple. I substituted my go-to gluten-free flour (Trader Joe’s Gluten Free All Purpose Flour) for the regular flour. I also substituted gluten-free cookies for the regular ones. These worked out well, and I’m sure there are lots of other good choices.

As for other ingredients, I made them without the walnuts. No offense to walnuts, I’m just not really into them. I also used the vanilla, not the rum. I also only used one type of brown sugar. I didn’t use any flaky sea salt.

The deliciousness of these really inspired me to put crusts on other things. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t (as you’ll see in upcoming posts). But now I understand the principle of crushing up previously made things (cookies, graham crackers, cereal, etc.) to use in cookies. It worked well for graham cracker crust. And I’m excited to use the idea on other things as well. As I’m making more and more of other people’s recipes, I’m starting to internalize more how they work. I want to make more of my own recipes some day, so this is the perfect training.

I also loved the metric measurements on the recipe. They make measuring a lot easier. You can read more about my take on measuring here.

I’d like to think about making them with a more healthy recipe. One with much less butter and sugar. I realize those things are part of what makes these so darn good. But I think it’s possible to make something similar without sooooo much butter and sugar. I started reducing the butter (as I mentioned above), but I think I want to rewrite it. Or maybe I should just be inspired by it, and make something completely from scratch. It’s such a great idea to begin with, I just hope I can make something else that lives up to the reputation.

In the meantime, go check out the recipe. Try it and let me know what you think of it as is, or with less butter and sugar, in the comments below.

Recipe from The New York Times.

Millionaire’s Shortbread

Millionaire’s shortbread is an amazing thing. In case you don’t know what it is, it’s shortbread topped with caramel, then chocolate. It’s also known as caramel shortbread. I like the name “millionaire’s shortbread” because it sounds fancy and accurately describes how rich it is. Also, “caramel shortbread” isn’t entirely descriptive, because it doesn’t mention the chocolate. Granted “millionaire’s shortbread” doesn’t mention either the caramel or the chocolate, but at least that way it’s even, and it still sounds delicious.

Naming aside, it’s worth noting that I recently discovered it through two unrelated occurrences. The first thing that happened was that I started frequenting a local bakery. It’s a great bakery with delicious cookies, whoopie pies, cakes, and other baked goods. The staff is super friendly, super professional, and super fun. And it’s a great place to hang out, so I find myself there a bunch. One of their best cookies, in my opinion, is their millionaire’s shortbread. They don’t call it that, but that’s what it is. So from never having heard of it before, I came to really enjoy and appreciate it.

The other thing that happened is that a friend asked me to make it. A while ago, when I was first starting to get back into baking, I wasn’t quite sure what to make next. I asked a bunch of people to tell me what they thought I should make. One friend suggested these. At that point I had just had some, from the local bakery, so that idea resonated with me. I made them.

And since I enjoyed them so much, I went on to make them over and over again. They’re a lot of fun, they’re super easy, and they’re super delicious. It took a little digging and experimenting to find and perfect a good recipe, though. Shortbread is pretty easy to make. The chocolate part is a snap. But caramel! The first time I made them following the recipe I chose, the caramel turned out rock hard. It turns out I had cooked it for too long. So I ignored their instructions for how long to cook the caramel, and sought advice elsewhere. I tried out those other suggestions, and voilà! What you see in the recipe below is what I ended up with.

They’re easy to play around with, too. I’ve done them gluten-free (just substitute gluten-free flour). and they turn out great. I’ve done them with rice crispy treats instead of shortbread, and they also turn out great. (I’ll post about those later.) If you really think about it, putting caramel and chocolate on almost anything should be a hit, so I’m not surprised.

I hope you’ll try them out, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. When I want to make cookies, and I’m not sure what else to make, they’re my go-to recipe. Maybe they’ll become part of your cookie making rotation, too!

Recipe lightly adapted from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

For the shortbread:

2/3 cup butter

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/4 cup flour

For the caramel:

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons corn syrup

1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk

For the chocolate topping:

190 grams milk chocolate

Instructions:

To make the shortbread, mix together butter, sugar, and flour. Line a 8×8 square baking dish with parchment paper. Spread evenly into the bottom of the dish. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes.

To make the caramel, add the butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, and sweetened condensed milk into a saucepan. Cook until it’s boiling. Then reduce heat and stir. Keep stirring for another 4 minutes and remove from heat. Pour over the shortbread and spread evenly.

To make the chocolate topping, break the chocolate into small pieces and put into a microwave safe dish. Microwave for 1 minute and stir. If it’s not a smooth consistency yet, you might have to microwave it a little bit longer (15-20 seconds more should do it). Once it’s smooth, pour over the caramel, and spread evenly.

Chill until firm. Remove from dish, peel away parchment paper, and cut into small squares. (I usually make 25 from an 8×8 dish. Trust me, they’re that rich.) Enjoy!

Welcome.

Welcome to my new blog, Needs Baked. Why are we here? What are we in for? Read on!

Like so many of us, I grew up cooking and baking with my mom. Especially around holidays and birthdays, there would be a lot to do. But all year round I remember being in the kitchen helping out, and learning as I went. I know she did the same with her mother as well, and I also got to share in that same joy with my grandmother.

My wife compliments me for being fearless in the kitchen, unafraid to try new things or experiment with difficult recipes. I think I’m just comfortable in the kitchen. I remember experimenting in the kitchen with my friends when I was growing up. We made some truly terrible things, but it was a lot of fun.

These days I often cook with my mom when I visit, but in the meantime I bake here at home. My wife does most of the cooking, as I get home from work later than she does, and waiting till I get home to start on making dinner would push dinnertime super late.

But the baking is all mine. I can start and finish when I please. I can choose recipes or experiment with ideas on a whim with no repercussions. I get to play, to create, to share. It’s fun. It’s creative. It pushes my mind. And it’s usually delicious.

So this blog is about this process. What I’m thinking about, what I’m trying, what I come up with, what works, what doesn’t.

I also wanted to add a special note about gluten-free baking. Some of the items I make are gluten-free. There is a separate category just for gluten-free recipes, so you can use that if that’s what you’re looking for. And even if you’re not looking for that, I wouldn’t skip those recipes. Many of them are delicious, and you wouldn’t know they were gluten-free unless someone told you. (You can read more details here about how and why I sometimes bake gluten-free.)

Oh, and the name of the blog? I didn’t grow up there, but my family has roots in Pittsburgh. I didn’t realize it growing up, but I picked up some Pittsburghese. I was sitting in a linguistics class in college (one of my other interests), and it hit me that a common grammatical construction I use comes from the Pittsburgh dialect. Instead of saying, “The car needs to be washed.”, I’ll say, “The car needs washed.” (You can read more about it here.) So, it’s named in honor of my mom and my grandmother, with whom I found a joy in baking. You can think of it as, “This recipe needs baked.”

I hope you enjoy what you see. I hope you try out the recipes you read. I hope you enjoy them. And I hope that you let me know what you think regardless. (I know, that’s a lot of hoping.) And now, on with the show!