Peppermint Hot Coca Krispies

My poor hands. They’ve been in and out of the sink all day, washing and drying the five kitchen items I actually like to use. You know these mini rubber spatulas are two of them.

As you may have guessed I’ve been in the kitchen all day. Chocolate chip eggnog bread for breakfast, mini Philly cheese steaks for lunch, and most recently a batch of rice krispy treats. But not just any rice krispy treats; these jammies were decked out for the holidays. Peppermint. Hot chocolate. You name it. Okay, just peppermint and hot chocolate, but it’s a nice twist on the classic, am I right?

The eggnog bread was disappointing. I like eggnog and was expecting it to be the key player in the recipe but it was kind of just along for the ride. If I hadn’t added the chocolate chips, it would have been a bust. Brent said he liked it, but I don’t know how sincere he is, one slice in. 

But the krispies? Complete opposite of a bust, whatever that word is. 

insert shameless picture of new Christmas tray I'm deliriously happy about

I adapted them from this recipe, but changed it up a little bit out of necessity b/c I couldn’t find the damn peppermint marshmallows I was so excited about. Two supermarkets came up empty-handed, the clerks giving me the weirdo look when I inquired about such mythical baking ingredients (um, I’m not the weirdo here, you and your inadequate supermarket are). So I went w/ regular mallows and decided to add some peppermint extract. 

Last time I made rice krispie treats they were a little too krispy; hard, brittle squares no one wanted to wrestle from the dish. So instead of blindly measuring out 6 cups of krispies (which, hello, is from the recipe on the side of the cereal box; obviously the cereal manufacturer is going to tell you to put mass amounts of rice krispies in your treats) I did a little scaling back. I mean, 6 cups? That’s 48 ounces, right? 8 ounces to a cup and all that, did I do that right? 48 ounces of rice krispies?! That’s a lot of muthafuggin rice krispies. I bought the 12oz box and used about three quarters of it. So….about 9 ounces? Slightly more than 1 cup. Not to be confused w/ the 6 the recipe calls for. I’m not falling for that again, Kellogg’s. Maybe some people don’t like their treats to be as ooey gooey as I do, but if you like that kind of mallow-filled goodness, stick w/ me. 

I used my new food processor to crush up those peppermints; holy shit, is that exciting to watch. Especially since the last time I cut up those shits my floor was like a minefield of jagged peppermint pieces that had flown off the cutting board. Brent’s mom got me a food processor for Christmas and it’s safe to say that gem is a game changah. 

Hmm, looking at that picture the mint still seems to be rather large. Maybe b/c in my impatience to get them on the treats so I could stick them in the fridge to start cooling so I could be that much closer to eating them I didn’t take the five extra seconds to make sure my mints were finely crushed. Hey, it looks like a mini marshmallow, so I’m kinda digging it. Know what else I’m digging? These treats. As evidenced by the now half-empty dish and the ooey gooey stickiness that is my keyboard b/c I couldn’t wait to post about them.

My only complaint was that they didn't look nearly as dark and chocolatey as they did in the original recipe picture. Next time I'll be adding more hot cocoa mix. I don't care as much about the color as the taste, and you can never have enough chocolate. 

Peppermint Hot Cocoa Krispies

Ingredients 

9 oz Rice Krispies cereal (slightly more than 1 cup)

1/4 cup butter

10 oz bag of marshmallows

½ cup hot cocoa mix

¼ tsp mint extract 

3 candy canes, crushed (optional)

Instructions

-Spray a 8 x 11.5 glass pan with cooking spray. Set aside.

-In a large pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Once melted, stir in marshmallows. When the marshmallows are melted, add the mint extract and the hot chocolate mix. 

-Remove from heat and add in the Rice Krispies. Stir until all the cereal is coated with the marshmallow mixture.

-Spread into your prepared pan. I used a plastic spoon for my stirring and spreading and had no issues w/ the mallows or krispies sticking. Sprinkle the crushed candy canes over top.

-Let cool completely before cutting into squares.