Description
Scotcharoos are a Midwest classic. A peanut butter rice crispy treat topped with a mixture of chocolate and scotcharoos. This healthier recipe uses honey instead of corn syrup as the sweetener. So GOOD!
Ingredients
Peanut butter rice crisipies
- 3/4 cup all natural peanut butter
- 1/3 cup honey
- pinch kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 1/2 cups crispy rice cereal (see notes)
Topping
- 1 cup dark chocolate chips (see notes)
- 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons butterscotch chips (see notes)
- optional: flaky sea salt, for finishing
Instructions
- Prepare: Line a 9×9 square baking pan with parchment paper on the bottom, allowing some parchment paper to overhang on 2 sides, creating “handles”. Lightly grease the entire pan, and the parchment paper. Set aside.
- Make the peanut butter rice crispies: Have everything measured out an ready to go, this part of the recipe goes really fast, so being prepared is helpful. Add the peanut butter, honey, salt, and coconut oil to a medium sized sauce pot. Turn the heat on medium low. Stirring constantly, allow the coconut oil to melt – once everything is well combined and liquidly, remove the pan from the heat. Do not allow the mixture to simmer. Stir in the vanilla. Then slowly stir in the rice cereal, just until the cereal is completely coated in the peanut butter mixture.
- Press into the pan: Transfer the peanut butter and cereal mixture to the prepared baking pan. Press into the pan using a spatula. You want to mixture to be even, and flat, and tightly pressed in there so that everything sticks together, but don’t press so hard that you break the cereal.
- Freeze: Freeze the peanut butter and cereal mixture for 15 minutes.
- Melt the chocolate and butterscotch: Meanwhile add the chocolate and butterscotch chips to a microwave safe bowl and microwave on in increments of 30 seconds, stirring between each heating session. Once the chocolate chips are ALMOST melted, stop heating them, and stir to melt the remaining chips from the residual heat. You want the mixture to be pourable, but not super runny either. Allow it to cool a little longer if it’s super hot and runny.
- Add the topping: Once the peanut butter/cereal layer has been chilled, and the chocolate/butterscotch layer has cooled a little, but is still runny – pour the melted chocolate over top of the rice kipsies and use an offset spatula, or the back of a spoon, to spread the chocolate out to the edges of the pan.
- Freeze: Freeze again for 5 minutes, sprinkle the chocolate with flaky finishing sea salt (if using) and freeze another 10 minutes (15 minutes total), or until the chocolate is set.
- Cut: Allow the bars to come up to room temp for 15 to 20 minutes so the chocolate is easier to cut through. Use the parchment paper “handles” to lift the bars out of the pan. Place them on a cutting board and use a large chef’s knife to cut them into squares. Serve immediately.
- Store/enjoy: Store the scotcharoos in an air tight container in the fridge. To serve, allow them to sit at room temp for 10 to 15 minutes so the chocolate softens a little. Generally you want to keep them refrigerated, otherwise the bottom layer falls apart easier.
Notes
rice cereal: You can also use brown rice cereal.
gluten free: to make gluten free scotcharoos make sure that you use gluten free cereal. Some of the cereal brands has malt in the ingredients, malt isn’t gluten free. But, there are gluten free rice cereal brands out there.
Chocolate chips: I like to use chocolate chips that at least have 53% cocoa powder in them to help balance out the over-sweetness of the butterscotch chips.
Butterscotch chips: butterscotch chips are what scotcharoos are named after. Purists here in the Midwest will firmly stand by that scotcharoos aren’t scotcharoos unless they contain butterscotch chips lol. However, if you’re not a fan, or you simply want to omit the butterscotch chips, simply replace them with more chocolate chips, it will still be really good. Also, I couldn’t find a butterscotch chip brand that isn’t artificially flavored, since this is an occasional, nostalgic treat for me, I am fine with this. At least we are still reducing the sugar content by a lot in the bottom layer of the bars.
Honey: I don’t recommend swapping the honey with maple syrup. I tested the recipe using maple syrup several times and it didn’t hold together nearly as well as the honey did. You could maybe try using agave nectar, but I bet the honey will hold the shape the best.
Peanut butter: You could technically swap the peanut butter with any other kind of nut butter, or seed butter you like , if needed. But, the peanut butter is also very classic to this dessert, and so good, so I highly recommend the peanut butter (unless you’re allergic).
