Vegan Strawberry Crispy Rice Treats

Happy Valentines Day! 🧡 Who doesn’t love traditional rice crispy treats right? I thought though, how can I make these a little more special? Fresh fruit is always delicious, but not so good when mixed into things like cakes, brownies, candies and these kind of treats because of the water content. It just winds up getting mushy. An easy solution to this was to use freeze dried fruit that’s available in a lot of grocery stores now. Trader Joe’s as well as Whole Foods Market makes their own private label line of freeze dried fruits (and some vegetables!). I chose strawberries, but you could easily go with freeze dried raspberries or even blueberries.

For the base of the rice crispy treats, there is pretty much little deviation in all of the recipes available online including the classic one you know from your childhood. I chose to go with Dandies marshmallows recipe available here: http://dandiesmarshmallows.com/recipes/classic-crispy-treats as it uses a combination of vegan butter and coconut oil. I prefer unrefined coconut oil for that slight coconut taste in the finished product. Adding the crushed freeze dried strawberries takes this to another level completely. They have a tartness that balances the sweetness of the rice crispy treats and makes for a totally amazing combination.

Whatever freeze dried fruit you use, they come whole in the package, so make sure to chop them first before adding them to the rice crispy treats. You can use a small mini prep or larger food processor, or even chop them by hand or by placing in a plastic bag and crushing with a rolling pin. Just make sure not to chop them to finely. You want them to look like the picture. Adding the fine dust at the bottom of the bowl is perfectly fine as well as it will not tint the final product too much.

Another great thing about this recipe is that it can all be done using the microwave. If you prefer to use a traditional stove top method that’s fine, just make sure not to burn the marshmallow mixture.

Most recipes call for using a 9 x 9“ baking pan to make the rice crispy treats but I found using a small half sheet pan to be the best so that they’re not too thick. Lining the pan with a piece of parchment paper also makes it easy to remove once they are set. A light misting of baking spray on the bottom of the pan before adding the parchment helps it to stick so that it doesn’t shift around when adding the marshmallows and rice crispy mixture to it.

Using a nonstick rubber spatula is best to get the marshmallows and rice crispy treat mixture together. Once it’s all mixed, add it to the sheet pan and cool in the fridge before cutting.

I chose to cut out large and small heart shapes from the pan of rice crispy treats but you can certainly just cut them into squares or whatever shapes you want.

I decided to do a quick method of tempering chocolate so that it doesn’t turn dull and ashy once cooled on the finished product. This is done by making sure the chocolate never gets above a temperature of 96°F. I know most don’t own a candy thermometer, so this is sort of difficult to do on the stove top unless you know exactly the temperature of your chocolate. A way around this is to use the microwave. Cooking in small short 30 second bursts allows you to control the temperature of the chocolate so that it never gets above 96°.

I prefer using a combination of semisweet and bittersweet chocolate. I find semisweet can be a little too sweet and bittersweet a little too bitter obviously. Using a combination of both, gives you the best of both worlds. I started with semisweet chips in the microwave and then at the end when they’re almost melted adding shaved chopped bittersweet chocolate allows the mixture to cool down while still melting and it will remain pretty glossy when dry.

I did use a glass bowl to melt the chocolate but once melted, I moved it into a plastic bowl because the glass will retain heat and continue to cook the chocolate which you do not want. If it gets above that certain temperature your chocolate will look dull once dry. Blame science people.