Cooking with Bully: Rice Krispie Crunchy Fudge Sandwiches

Hi hi hi, everybody! I'm Chef Bully, host of the Food Network smash series A Little Bull and Some Buttered Toast, and I'm here today to show you how to make a delicious autumn treat that's quick to create and yummy to snack on. You can give 'em away as Halloween treats, but c'mon now, who's gonna wanna give away the best cookies in the world? I'm talking, of course, about Rice Krispie Crunchy Fudge Sandwiches.

Right about now I'm sure you're scoffing to yourself and saying Rice Krispie Treats?!? Those aren't anything new, little stuffed bull. Those are just Rice Krispies and marshmallow and... But hold on just a minute, Sonny Jim! We ain't talkin' 'bout your run-o'-the-mill common-or-garden Rice Krispie Treats here. These are Crunchy Fudge Sandwiches. Make 'em along with me and you'll see!

But first, there's a Bull family story behind these delicious melt-in-your-mouth treats. Way back when I was a tiny stuffed bull, Mama Bull would make Crunchy Fudge Sandwiches for me, and I would sing and dance the Happy Bully Cookie Dance. She got the recipe off the back of a Toll House Morsels packet, but one day when she lost the recipe, she went looking for it again on the back of chocolate chip packages, to no avail. It wasn't reprinted anymore on the packets! She wrote to the Nestle Company to ask them to send her a copy of the recipe, and they returned a note swearing up and down they'd never heard of that recipe. It was almost as if we had dreamt them up.

Mama Bull, being the clever mom she is, reconstructed the recipe from scratch, and it was as Jim-Dandy as ever. I suggested (with my mouth full of Rice Krispie Crunchy Fudge Sandwich) that since the company had apparently lost all record of the recipe, that she submit it to their next baking contest as her own creation! Mama Bull, of course, refused to do so, reminding me that honesty is the best policy. I didn't mind, of course, long as I could have 'smore Crunchy Fudge Sandwiches!

The funny thing is, years later, the recipe showed up again on Nestles packages and Rice Krispies boxes. Do you think they lost it for all those years and only just found it later on? Or maybe came across it in a church pot luck supper cookbook and appropriated it for themselves? The world may never know, but I know these cookies are dee-licious. So let's get biz-zay makin' 'em so there's more eating time at the end!

You'll need the following ingredients:

• A bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips (8 oz.)
• A bag of butterscotch chips (8 oz.)
• 8 cups Rice Krispies (a 9 oz. box will do)
• 4 tablespoons butter (half a stick, plus a wee bit more to grease your pan)
• 1 cup confectioner's sugar
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 2 tablespoons water

You'll also need a big mixing bowl large enough to stir up eight cups of Rice Krispies. I check out that it is big enough by getting inside it. Your success rate with that procedure may vary.



And, a 13 x 9 inch pan. Make sure you clean, or lick, any leftover cake out of it.



You'll also need a saucepan. Pour the butterscotch chips into the saucepan...



Measure out and add the 1 cup peanut butter to the chips. Be careful not to get any on your fur! It's sticky and nobody wants to take a bath after this.



Turn the stove on low, or get an adult to do it for you. I had that nice Ms. Lawson from down the street come over and help me out by turning on the stove. She's fun to cook with! But I wish she would stay out of my fridge after midnight!



Over the low heat, gently stir the butterscotch chips and peanut butter until it melts. If you're a very fussy cook, you can heat these over a double boiler or a pan of steaming water, but honestly, as long as you keep the heat low, and keep stirring it, you won't have any problems. Except drooling.



While the chips and PB are melting, you can take a few seconds to gently grease the cake pan with a film of butter. Hey, I think this is how Michael Phelps gets ready for a swimming race.



Ooh, lovely and melty! Resist the immediate impulse to dive head first into this delicious goop...



...and instead pour it over the 8 cups of Krispies (Rice) in the mixing bowl.



Stir, stir, stir like your life depended on it! Or, at least, the delicious cookies. The PB/butterscotch mixture should coat all the Krispies and be thoroughly blended. It's the most delicious breakfast cereal ever, but it's not even half done yet!



Spread one-half of the mixture in the pan. And the other half in your mouth. No, seriously, keep the other half in the bowl for later use. (You can taste test it a bit if you want now. Yummy!)



Spread and flatten the half-bowl of mixture in the pan until it's fully spread around. Why, that looks like delicious cookies already. But it's not done yet!



Put the pan in the fridge to cool and harden. You can now start on stage two of the delicious cookery. If you want, have a cold refreshing glass of Lilt before you continue!



Before you continue, you'll need to wash the saucepan and your mixing spoon, so now's the time to do the dishes. Or, get a friend to do the dishes for you.



Now for the chocolately part of the process! Pour the bag of chocolate chips into the saucepan...



...(it's okay to eat a few while you're doing it to keep your strength up!)



To the chocolate chips, measure and add 1 cup of confectioner's sugar...



...4 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons water.



Mix, over low heat again, the chocolate/sugar/butter/water blend until it's smooth and creamy and looks like the river that Augustus Gloop fell into...



Spread the melted chocolate over the pan of butterscotch/Krispie mix...



Until it's completely covering the Krispies.



Let the pan chill back in the fridge for about 15 minutes or until the chocolate hardens slightly and then spread the remainder of the Rice Krispie mixture (from the bowl, remember? You didn't eat it all, did you?) over the chocolate layer.



Once again, make certain it's spread down and flattened for maximum deliciousity! Then, you have to put it back in the fridge (I know, I know, it's difficult to wait at this point!) for about 45 minutes to an hour to let it chill and harden.



You could spend the time waiting, doing all the dishes. Or, you can get a friend to do them for you.



It's cookie time! With a sharp knife, cut the cookies, or get an adult to cut the cookies for you. Don't let Ms. Lawson eat them all!



Lay out the cookies on your favorite plate and be prepared to taste the nirvana that is Rice Krispie Crunchy Fudge Sandwiches! Enjoy!



Just one little postscript to the story above of the Nestle Company disavowing all knowledge of the Crunchy Fudge Sandwich recipe. When I was going to make these cookies, I couldn't find my recipe card that Mama Bull copied out for me, so I headed for a tool Mama Bull never had at her hooves: Google. Sure enough, I found the recipe on the Rice Krispie website, and happiness reigned in the Bull household. I bookmarked the recipe page for future reference.

Except...earlier tonight, when I was writing up this post, I went looking once again for the recipe to link it for y'all, and...

...it's gone from the RiceKrispies.com website.

I saw it...it was there last week! But now it's gone. (See: here's the Google results, but now they link to dead pages.) Where's the recipe gone?

EDIT on 2/17/09: A quick addition to let you know the recipe has now returned to the all-new, all-beautiful revamped RiceKrispies.com website. Click here for the recipe, and read my blog entry to find out about how the kindness of Mr. Karl Miller of Rice Krispies to a little stuffed bull impressed me a whole heckuva lot!

Oh well. But you just gotta wonder...is the Snap, Krackle and Pop Illuminati trying to keep the knowledge of this delicious, yummy treat away from you? Will I mysteriously disappear for giving this recipe out to you? Will my blog stop suddenly becau