ALLCAPS COOKBOOK PRESENTS: Maple Brown Butter Rice Krispy Treats

Well, I mean, everyone's gonna give you some elaborate deconstructed haut Thanksgiving 12-hour layered mess of a basic casserole this week. I thought I'd go for something fun and quick that doesn't take hours and hours of unappreciated labor.

Yeah, it's rice krispy treats, but bish, do you even remember how good that shit is when it's still warm? Heaven smells like that. Come on, you know it, I know it.

And this has two extra steps that really kick it up. I'm saying four tablespoons of maple syrup, but you could go higher. It's sweet as hell already, it won't make a difference, but you REALLY want to taste that maple.

If I were feeling extra fancy, I might sprinkle candied bacon (lay bacon on tray. sprinkle brown sugar on bacon. Bake at 300 until crispy and shiny, let cool until it's shatterable) or drizzle homemade salted caramel on top. But that's pretty much only if I feel like delaying eating this with my face before they cool off even a little.

You do you, boo. It's the end of the world. Who gives a fuck. In a year rice krispy treats will probably be $10 a square.

Ingredients

6 cups Rice Krispies or generic cereal analog of your choice

45-50 marshmallows (this is basically a whole bag of regular sized marshmallows)

7 tablespoons butter

4 tablespoons real maple syrup (ONLY REAL YOU GODDAMNED GOBLINS)

1-1.5 teaspoons salt (depending on how much you like the sweet + salty thing)

Kosher salt for sprinkling

Thanking the Givings

Preheat oven to 250 and assemble all ingredients and tools before you start. This comes together fast.

Get a big deep pot or dutch oven!

Dump all that butter in there!

Melt on on the low side of medium until butter liquefies. DON'T STOP BUT NOW IT'S DELICATE. What you want here is to keep cooking until the butter browns and you can get all that gritty, nutty deliciousness from the cooked milk solids into the bars. BUT you do NOT want to get blackened burnt milk solids into ANYTHING you like. So do this low and slow, don't take your eyes off it because if you do, it will DRAMATICALLY burn INSTANTANEOUSLY.

When the butter is golden, but NOT dark brown, add regular salt and maple syrup, give a quick stir to combine, then quickly add the marshmallows all at once.

Stir with a BIG wooden spoon until the marshmallows have all melted and you have a big pot of bubbling goop. Add the cereal, then turn off the heat and combine everything together, giving it a little muscle, until it's all smushed up into one giant lump of Stuff.

Press into a deep tray or pie/cake pan as quickly and neatly as possible, given that the Stuff is hardening the whole time and trying to get impossible to handle before you can finish handling it. NO WORRIES!

Once it's all vaguely in the tray/pan, sprinkle kosher salt on top (to taste) and finish in the oven at 250 for about 5-7 minutes, enough for it to partially liquefy again and even out. You can even pat anything still messy back into shape once you pull it out of the oven, if you move fast.

Let cool on the counter for a minute or two, but definitely eat while still warm! Ice cream on top would be unreal.