Chocolate covered crisped rice christmas bars on a stick
I’m posting this not with an explanation but for inspiration instead. The trick here is to give it a good look, then wander into the kitchen and experiment.
These are just rice crispy treats on a popsicle stick, covered with a chocolate ganache type recipe (and melted chocolate chips work just fine, I’ve found).
December 13th, 2005 at 4:13 pm
how do you make these? I am totally stunted in the kitchen but I can make krispie bars. These would be great for a party I am going to this weekend.
Thanks!
December 13th, 2005 at 7:45 pm
Hi Tracy. The trick to these would be all in the icing. In order to make these, I would bake in a cookie sheet like normal, but cut them into whatever size you feel comfortable serving. Push in a tongue depressor/popsicle stick and use the stick to hold on while you cover the treat in melted chocolate.
Probably the easiest way for you to cover these treats in chocolate would be to melt a bag of chocolate chips and a tablespoon of shortening in a double boiler. Then using a spoon in one hand (and holding the treat on a stick in the other), rotate the treat, coating it with melted chocolate until the entire treat is covered. I would use florist foam to push the popsicle sticks into to hold the treats upright while the chocolate hardened. Then the remaining decorations (santa’s hat, snowman’s face, etc) can all be piped on with gel icing (available in the baking aisle of your grocery store).
Hopefully that’s enough information to get you underway. Good luck and I hope your party treat is a raging success!
January 5th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
how do you get the marshmallow to stop seeping into the chocolate that has covered the marshmallow treat. it seems like after the chocolate has dried that there appears discolored chocolate spots. i am assuming that is from the marshmallow in the treats. any suggestions.
Hi Patty: for some reason, I can’t get my response to show in the comments, so I’m adding it directly to your comment. Here are my thoughts:
I have a strong suspicion that the discolored chocolate spots you are seeing is what is called “the bloom” on chocolate. When standard eating chocolate dries, it develops what look like little blooms of waxiness. One way to eliminate is to use a higher quality chocolate (which frankly, gets goshed-darned expensive, since the last chocolate bar of good quality stuff I looked at cost more than a tank of gasoline…and I just can’t play that right now.) So - we are falling back on the old ways that our parents used to get the chocolate to have that smooth, glossy finish. (Well, almost the old way). People used to use paraffin (yes, the stuff with which you sealed the top of your canning jars), however, not many people have an old coffee tin of paraffin in their pantries anymore (and eeww, I hated the idea of eating paraffin anyway). So - the replacement for paraffin in chocolate became shortening. Yes. Crisco. Add 2 tablespoons to Crisco to the pot of chocolate as it melts down, and as the chocolate dries on the rice crispy treats, you should find all “bloom” disappears. The shortening adds enough fat to the chocolate that when it dries, it doesn’t get that white chalky look to it.
Let me know if that doesn’t do the trick. Fingers crossed, it should! Best wishes to you. Kat
December 6th, 2007 at 9:41 am
Soaking up your replies–looking for shortening vs. paraffin info–thanks!
January 14th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
The other alternative to stop the chocolate from blooming is a process called tempering. That’s what pro chocolatiers use, but it’s not too hard. It’s basically raising and lowering the temp of the chocolate before it hardens so that it hardens correctly. For detailed info check out Chocoley.com … they’ve got a lot of information in their “About Tempering” section that should help. You can also use a compound chocolate product which won’t bloom, even without tempering. Just be careful to get a decent brand becuase most compound chocolate’s don’t taste great. But there a couple out there that are awesome.