Brown Butter Rice Crispy Treats

Instructions

1. 1

   Set up before you turn on the heat

   Rub a 9x13-inch pan with the butter meant for greasing, getting the corners and sides. Measure the cereal into a very large bowl and keep it within arm's reach, and put the 2 cups of fold-in marshmallows beside it. Once the butter and marshmallows are melted, this moves fast, so everything needs to be ready to go.

2. 2

   Brown the butter

   Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat, then keep cooking and swirling the pan. It will foam up, go quiet, and then you'll see the milk solids at the bottom turn amber and start to smell nutty and toasted. That's the finish line, usually 5 to 7 minutes. Pull it off the heat the moment it gets there, because it goes from golden to burnt in about thirty seconds.

3. 3

   Melt the marshmallows

   Lower the heat to low and return the pot to the burner. Add the 9 cups of marshmallows and stir steadily until they've melted into a smooth, glossy mixture with no lumps left. Keep the heat gentle here. If you cook the marshmallow too hard or too long, the sugar tightens up and your treats will set hard instead of chewy.

4. 4

   Season off the heat

   Take the pot off the burner and stir in the vanilla and fine sea salt. The salt is doing real work against all that sugar, so don't skip it. The mixture will loosen slightly and smell like toasted marshmallow and caramel.

5. 5

   Fold in the cereal

   Pour the marshmallow mixture over the cereal in the big bowl and fold with a greased spatula, scooping from the bottom and turning it over rather than stirring in circles. Stop as soon as everything looks coated, about 30 seconds. Scatter the reserved 2 cups of marshmallows over the top and give it three or four more folds so they stay mostly whole and turn into soft pockets later.

6. 6

   Press into the pan, gently

   Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan. Butter your hands or lay a sheet of parchment on top, then press just until the surface is level and reaches the corners. Light pressure only. Packing it down hard is the single most common reason rice crispy treats come out dense and tough.

7. 7

   Cool, salt, and cut

   Sprinkle the flaky salt over the top while the surface is still tacky so it sticks. Let the pan sit at room temperature for at least 45 minutes until fully set. Cut into 24 bars with a long sharp knife, wiping the blade between cuts. Skip the fridge, which makes them firm and dry.

8. You did it! Help us bring baking back home by selling your delicious baked goods on Homebaked!

Baker's Tips

• 1.

  Use marshmallows from a freshly opened bag. Older ones dry out, resist melting, and leave you stirring over heat far longer than you should, which is what makes treats turn out hard.

• 2.

  Brown the butter in a light-colored pot if you have one. In a dark pot you can't see the milk solids changing color, and your only warning is the smell.

• 3.

  Weigh the cereal if you can. A cup of crisp rice is about 30g, but it compacts easily in the measuring cup, and an extra cup or two of cereal is the difference between chewy and dry.

• 4.

  Press with a buttered sheet of parchment rather than your hands if you want perfectly flat tops with zero compacting.

• 5.

  For a thicker, bakery-style bar, use an 8x8-inch pan and half the recipe, then let it set a full hour before cutting.

• 6.

  A handful of mini chocolate chips folded in with the reserved marshmallows works well, but add them last and work quickly so they don't melt into streaks.

Equipment

• 9x13-inch pan
• Large heavy-bottomed pot (5 quart or larger)
• Very large mixing bowl
• Silicone or rubber spatula
• Parchment paper
• Long sharp knife

Storage