Death by Scotcharoo

I have an addiction.  And it’s bad.

The other day a girl from work brought in a pan of these babies.  It took all my self control and will power to not steal the entire pan and sit, wild eyed, in a corner of the store eating my weight in Scotcharoos.

I could have done it too.  And I wouldn’t have felt a teensy bit bad about it.

You see, I have this addiction to peanut butter…

If it’s around, I eat it.  In oatmeal, in desserts, on toast, on my fingers…  It really doesn’t matter.  Well, after I tried her Scotcharoos for the first time and tasted the sweet peanut butter mixed with crunchy cereal and chocolatey topping, I was hooked.  I begged and pleaded for the recipe (which she gave me in about 1.2 seconds) and decided today was the perfect time to make them.

Now, some of you out there are thinking, “Yeah?  What’s the big deal?  They’re Scotcharoos.  They are basically Rice Krispie Treats’ bad boy cousin.”  Well, until a few months ago, I had never had them.  I had no idea what I’d been missing…

Scotcharoos (from Kelloggs)

1 cup white sugar
1 cup light Karo syrup
1 cup peanut butter
6 cups Rice Krispie cereal
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips

Over medium heat, melt the sugar and karo syrup together until sugar dissolves and the mixture starts to boil.

Turn off the heat and stir in the peanut butter.

Add the cereal and mix well to combine.  Spread evenly in a greased 13×9 inch baking dish.

As the cook, enjoy the little bitties that cling to the spatula as your treat.  You’ve worked hard.  You deserve it.

Melt 1 cup of chocolate chips in the microwave.  To do this you want to heat in 30 second intervals, stirring in between each session.  Otherwise, your chocolate will not heat evenly and you could burn it which, let’s face it, is a sin.  Don’t do it.  To melt my chips, it took 1.5 minutes.

Once your chocolate chips are melted, add the butterscotch chips and stir to melt.  This process is referred to as tempering, which results in the chocolate hardening nicer.

After your chips are melted, spread over cereal mixture.

Let harden…if you can.  I could not wait and ended up with chocolate all over my fingers.  This is not a bad thing, my friends.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go overdose on my pan of peanut buttery goodness.

Ignore the wild eyes…they’ll go away eventually.