Saturday, June 15, 2013

5 Ingredient Vegan Rice Crispy Treats

These rice crispy treats are delicious, only take a few minutes to make and are much healthier than the rice crispy treats I used to love as a kid. What I didn't know then, was that the marshmallows were made from gelatin. Yuck!

As a sweetener, the original recipe calls for brown rice syrup. I've never had the occasion to use it in a recipe before. Ever since I read the news about brown rice syrup containing high levels of arsenic, I haven't been very enthusiastic about trying it. I'm sure it's ok in small amounts but I found alternatives that worked well - blackstrap molasses and honey. It also calls for sunflower seed butter. I've used organic almond butter, tahini and peanut butter. They all worked well.

Ingredients
  • 8 cups gluten-free brown rice cereal (use crispy rice, NOT puffed!)
  • ¼ cup ground flax seed
  • 1/2 cup organic blackstrap molasses
  • 1/2 cup organic honey
  • ⅔ cup tahini (most nut butters should work
  • 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions
  1. Lightly oil a 9×13 pan with whatever oil you have on hand. Coconut oil, safflower, sunflower, or vegan butter spread, would work well. Set aside.
  2. Place brown rice cereal and ground flax seed in a large bowl. Stir to combine and set aside.
  3. In a medium-sized sauce pan or frying pan, add molasses and honey, nut butter and vanilla extract. Heat over medium heat, stirring often, until ingredients have liquefied, about 5 minutes.
  4. Pour syrup over rice crisp mixture and stir to coat.
  5. Once all crisps have been coated, drop the mixture into the prepared pan and even it out with a spatula, pressing down firmly.
  6. Allow to sit for 1 hour in the refrigerator before cutting into squares.
 
Easy alternative:
If you want a smaller recipe and something even easier, heat 1/2 cup of peanut butter with 1/2 cup honey (I like to use mostly honey, 1 TB of blackstrap molasses and a bit of maple syrup to make 1/2 cup), tsp of vanilla and liquefy over medium heat. In a bowl, mix puffed rice with the hot mixture and press it into a pan. You can also make small balls while it's still warm and dip one side into melted chocolate chips.

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