Recipe: Chocolate crispy bites

Recipe: Chocolate crispy bites
Source: Chocablog: The chocolate blog

At the same time that I bookmarked the No bake chocolate chip cookie bars on Chocablog's website, I bookmarked this recipe for Chocolate crispy bites too. As a quick and easy recipe, it seemed ideal for me to try this for my nephew’s birthday tea.

Like most children, I ate many Rice Krispies cakes as a kid, but these were always the milk chocolate clusters – I was never lucky enough to try something similar made with white chocolate instead. As a result, whilst I was making these with the little ones in mind, I was pretty excited to try them myself!

Since I knew I would be reviewing this recipe, I’m proud to say that I didn’t cheat and use a microwave to melt the ingredients. That’s right, I used the bain-marie method, as advised! This obviously took longer but I’m sure it made a positive difference, somehow, somewhere...

I did have a panic moment when making these bites as, when I added the syrup and began to stir, the ingredients separated out, leaving a thick mixture underneath and a golden liquid on top (this appeared to be the syrup rather than the butter). I soon realised this wasn’t going to reverse itself so I decided to take the plunge and add it to the cereal anyway (unfortunately, I didn’t have a heatproof bowl big enough to do this the other way around, but the liquid easily transferred and didn’t leave any stuck to the original bowl).

Thankfully, when added to the cereal, the mixture seemed to work and there was a lovely smell of white chocolate too. When combined, the mixture glided easily into the tin and, despite initial concerns, the mixture didn’t separate out again.

I’m not at all artistic so my attempt at adding the milk chocolate made the overall appearance look messy but, on the plus side, I knew this would be less of an issue once cut into smaller pieces. Since I had fewer than two hours before I needed to do this, I put the tray in the fridge for a bit – I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to but it seemed to do the trick!

The images on Chocablog made the finished product look similar in texture to Kellogg’s Rice Krispies: Squares but mine seemed to look and feel a lot gooier, even after they had set. Of course, these bites were crispy, but they were surrounded by so much ‘good stuff’ that there wasn’t a chewiness to them and, instead, they had soggy bottoms since that’s where a lot of the liquid seemed to have sunk too. I’m not sure if this means that they had gone wrong or not, but they were certainly very tasty so it didn’t seem to matter. They had a really sweet taste and I was surprised at how much flavour the syrup provided, resulting in a caramel-like taste. I can’t say that I could specifically notice the milk chocolate but they did remind me slightly of millionaire’s shortbread so I wondered if this drizzled layer contributed to that. 

Due to the sweetness and the fact that I knew plenty of other food would be on offer, I decided to cut these bites in a way that resulted in 21 squares – a slightly larger yield than the 16 suggested by Chocablog. This seemed to be the way to go as all of them got eaten somehow – I always think it’s a good sign when people decide to keep some to take home!

This wasn’t the kind of treat that people would rave about (and they didn’t!) but these bites were nice enough. They will have done absolutely nothing positive for the waistline, particularly having seen how transparent the greaseproof paper had gone after being in contact with them but, as my sister pointed out, with the cereal, it was just like eating breakfast! 

Ease of recipe: 8/10
Finished product: 7/10
Overall score: 7.5/10
Bake again? Probably