Originally I thought this recipe looked so easy that I considered doing it in the dorm this week. But I was wrong. Horribly wrong. I'm very glad I went ahead and did this at home instead. I guess it's not so much that it's a difficult recipe. It's just that I had some issues with equipment and lack of experience with candy-making. Yes, this recipe is more like candy-making than baking; I didn't even use the oven. I'll tell you what I did so you'll know how to avoid the same mistakes I made.You start with a cup of sugar and a cup of light corn syrup in a pan and bring it to just a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. I stirred with a plastic spatula... Turned out that was a bad idea, because I saw a little swirl of blue in the mixture about halfway through. Yeah, the spatula head was blue... and yes, that means that a little bit of the spatula melted into the sugar mixture. Luckily I was able to get the piece of blue out and I switched to a spoon, first a plastic coated one then a metal one just to be safe. After taking the pan off the heat you mix in a cup of peanut butter - not really a problem. The problem was that the pan I used on the stovetop was way to small to fit six cups of Rice Krispies cereal in. I panicked a little, and my mom suggested a large glass measuring bowl (eight cups), but as I suspected it was also too small to stir the mixture up properly. So, she brought out a huge metal bowl, which was much easier. However, by this time the mixture has been cooling and hardening a little, so it was difficult to scrape it all out of the glass bowl and into the large metal one and then stir it. I thought at one point it was just not going to turn out, which is frustrating. But somehow I got it stirred up and into the 13" x 9" baking pan, which I ALMOST forgot to grease, and everything was A-okay. Last but not least, I melted the cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips and the cup of butterscotch chips together and spread it over the top of the cereal mixture. I placed it in the fridge to cool, safe at last. The only other problem I had was cutting them into bars. It was difficult to cut, so I got really uneven lines. I don't know if cutting them into bars before putting it in the fridge would've helped, but it may have. I was just following the recipe.
So yeah. If you decide to try this recipe, here's some tips. Either use a huge pot to begin with so you can add the Rice Krispies to the sugar/corn syrup/peanut butter mixture directly, OR put the cereal in a humongous bowl and scrape the peanut butter mix from a smaller pan on top of the cereal and stir. I'd recommend getting everything measured, greased, and ready to go before ever putting the sugar and corn syrup on the stove, that way you can work quickly and stir the mixture up before it starts hardening. Also, don't be a dumbass like me and use a rubber or plastic utensil to stir the sugar mixture on the stove. That was fail on my part.
My dad really likes these bars, but I think they're just okay... Maybe I've just got some hard feelings because I had a difficult time though. =P Anyway, I'd say these are maybe a 3 out of 5 stars. I don't mean any disrespect, Toll House, but I must say I prefer original Rice Krispy treats to this recipe. As much as I love peanut butter, Rice Krispies, chocolate and butterscotch, this just didn't "wow" me. Oh well. There are lessons to be learned here. You can't win'em all.
Cheers!
~Jesia
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