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

Recipe: No bake chocolate chip cookie bars

Recipe: No bake chocolate chip cookie bars
Source: Chocablog: The chocolate blog 

I recently had a non-diet weekend where I was seeing various family members and friends so I decided it would be nice to make something for them. I was short for time so I needed something quick and easy and I realised it would be a great opportunity to try this recipe for No bake chocolate chip cookie bars that I’ve had bookmarked from Chocablog: The chocolate blog for quite a while. It looked simple but effective and I was excited to make something a bit different that contained one of my favourite things: white chocolate!

I had planned to use rich tea biscuits in the recipe but, being the cheapskate that I am, I changed this to digestives when I discovered they were cheaper! (I later found that this was a blessing in disguise when a couple of relatives commented that the digestive provided a lovely flavour and that rich tea would have been too plain.) The only other ingredients ‘issue’ I had was my tin of condensed milk was 3g short although I didn’t think this would be a problem!

Using only four ingredients, this recipe required very little effort as the processes were so simple. Having whizzed my biscuits in a food processor, the only ‘work’ that was needed was chopping the chocolate, and stirring the mixture since this became more stiff as the biscuit crumbs became more combined.

Having initially overestimated the size of tin I needed, I managed to transfer my finished mixture into a more suitable tin, and quickly discovered that the best way to smooth it out was with a palette knife rather than the back of a spoon. I hadn’t expected it to be quite so stiff and fudge-like at this stage (it was a combined lump rather than a liquid when putting it in the tin) but once I’d adjusted to this, it was easy to achieve the desired result.

In the process of making these bars, I had tried a bit of the mixture from the saucepan and found it to be delicious but very sweet. This concerned me slightly in that I know not everyone has as sweet a tooth as me, but I did hope that the biscuits would help reduce this sweetness.

When the bars had cooled, I was fascinated that the individual components could be detected in the smell, as well as the taste. As anticipated, the chocolate chip cookie bars were sweet but, thankfully, did become more palatable with the addition of the biscuits. That said, they were the kind of sweet treat that would be hard to eat too many of at once since they would quickly become sickly (with me around, that’s a good thing!). Of course, the whole point of this recipe was to deliver an end result reminiscent of cookie dough. I didn’t mention this to my samplers but one of them instantly said ‘It’s like cookie dough!’ whilst the others simply commented on how delicious they were.

Prior to making these bars, I couldn’t quite imagine what they would be like texturally, and it turns out they were very fudgy – they had the squidginess of regular fudge yet the slight grainy-dustiness (from the crumbs) as butter tablet. I did find, though, that this ratio differed depending on whether they were eaten straight from the fridge or at room temperature.

This recipe was a success and, although not the most amazing sweet treats I’ve ever made, I loved how different they were, particularly after requiring so little effort. I made 24 bars and they only just lasted as many hours – everybody enjoyed them and most people went back for more if they could!

Thanks, Chocablog, for such a great resource. 

Ease of recipe: 9.5/10
Finished product: 7/10
Overall score: 8.25/10
Make again? Yes