Tuesday 4 November 2014

Monster cake, monster rice krispies and the red food dye fiasco

I have written about my discomfort with Halloween and the snacks I made at the birthday lunch for Alex and Ian.  While Halloween does not sit easily with me, I was far more comfortable with making a monster cake and monster rice krispies.  Monsters are as much something that little boys love as they are co-opted for Halloween fun.  Only this year I mistakenly overdid the red food dye and Sylvia and friends looked like something out of a horror movie.  That was fun but not at all recommended!

I decided to make rice krispie monsters based on a Pinterest image that took my fancy.  Like Halloween, rice krispie treats were never part of my childhood.  In fact I'd never heard of 'rice krispies' until I started blogging because we say 'rice bubbles' in Australia.  By the time I discovered the recipe I was vegetarian and was only too aware that marshmallows were made with gelatine.

Last year I tried some vegan rice krispie treats with cashew butter and rice malt syrup.  They worked ok.  I tweaked the recipe on the weekend and they were brilliant.  I am sure I loved them twice as much because they had chocolate spread over the top.  I made them with Sylvia the afternoon before the lunch.  They were easy to make but quite messy with spreading chocolate on them.

The photo had little squiggly mouths of icing.  I hate being asked to pipe icing.  It never works for me.  I thought if I bought a little tube of icing that would solve my problems.  Shopping late in the day found me buying what I thought was a tube of icing gel.  When we put it on the rice krispie monsters, Sylvia tasted it and told me it was salty.  I dismissed this and never bothered to taste it.  The gel did seem rather darker than I expected.  But it was on the monsters by then and I put it down to the dark chocolate background.

When Sylvia first tasted a rice krispie and her mouth went all red, I thought that was a powerful icing.  She loved the red so much she was smearing the gel over her mouth.  And by the time we were all eating the rice krispies, we all commented on how disgusting it tasted.  This was no sugar icing mixture.  It was pure food dye.  Red food dye!  That the kids were smearing over their lips and giggling in the mirror.  Oops!

So I post this recipe with the warning: do check the icing pen if you decide to buy one.  I will revert to my usual practice of making icing to pipe from a ziplock bag with the corner snipped or using one of my pipes.  At this this is not a piping exercise where precision is required!  However I do highly recommend making rice krispy treats using this recipe and topping it with chocolate.  So so good!

The other monster treat I made was a monster cake.  I took the path of least resistance here.  The cake I made was the banana yoghurt cake that we have loved on previous occasions.  I used the same simple cream cheese frosting I had used for the cake before but coloured it green.  The inspiration for the cake was a Charlie and Lola book called This is Actually My Party.   (The irony that it was more Sylvia's party than Alex and Ian's is not lost on me!  My mum also bought some pink cupcakes - in the top photo - which corresponded nicely with the story in the book.)

Given that very few kids were eating the cake, I liked that it didn't use many lollies (yep that is sweeties or candy).  In fact we had enough for it: mini oreos I had bought for the monsters (eyes), some vegan marshmallows I had bought (teeth), and some smarties (eyes), a jelly snack (mouth) and a jelly dinosaur cut into a round nose.  It was also an easy cake for Sylvia to help me make.

Food dye aside, the kids really loved the cake and rice krispy treats.  And the adults really loved the cake.  In an attempt to be a bit more healthy, I also made some skewers of blueberries and pineapple chunks.  I really liked them and they made a pretty addition to the table in a vase (see above photo).  I felt like I did well the birthday lunch in keeping the food simple.  We didn't have too many leftovers, though I do have a few pink cupcakes stashed in the freezer.

I am sending these monster rice krispies to Healthy Vegan Fridays #20 hosted by Kimmy of Rock my Vegan Socks and Robin of Vegan Dollhouse.

Previously on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
One year ago: Halloween treats: owl and spider cupcakes
Two years ago: Rocket birthday cake
Three years ago: Monkey birthday cake
Four years ago: Eggplant pate for boys birthday
Five years ago: Boys birthday, number two
Six years ago: Chocolate cake for our boys

Monster rice krispies
Adapted from my Green Gourmet Giraffe version

1⁄2 cup cashew nut butter
1⁄2 cup rice malt syrup (or brown rice syrup)
1/4 cup dessicated coconut
3 tbsp castor sugar
1 tbsp margarine or butter
pinch of salt
red food dye (or colour of choice)
4 cups rice bubbles (ie rice krispies, or other puffed rice)*

To decorate:
300g dark chocolate or choc chips
mini oreos*
mini m and ms" (or skittles)
red food icing

Mix all ingredients except food dye and rice bubbles into a large heatproof bowl.  Heat gently in the microwave until warm and gooey.  (I think I did about 1 minute).  Stir in a few drops of food dye or as much as you need for your desired colour.  Stir in rice bubbles until wall coated with gooey mixture.

Tip into a greased and lined lamington tin.  Smooth with the back of a spoon.  Refrigerate for an hour or two until firm.

Cut into rectangles (I cut 12 but there were rather big and we actually chopped them smaller to eat them).  Melt chocolate and spread over each rectangle.  Place mini oreos on melted chocolate to make eyes.  Pipe a squiggly mouth with red/pink icing.  Use m and ms to place pupils on eyes and dots over the monsters. 

Refrigerate until firm before eating.  (Again this should only be an hour or two.)  I found that they were great kept firm in the fridge but we kept some leftovers at room temperature for a day or two and these were fine too.

*Note: to make these gluten free, choose a gluten free brand of puffed rice.  Eyes could be made by purchasing different sizes of chocolate buttons (some dark and some white) and use alternative lollies or pipe icing for the spots.  To make these vegan, you will need some vegan lollies to make the spots and pupils of the eyes or just pipe icing.  Thanks to Robin for the suggestion of using Skittles which are vegan!

On the Stereo:
Wreck and Ruin: Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson

22 comments:

  1. Halloween is weird. That day is a protestant holiday in many parts of Germany but more and more people with kids to halloween activities. And that is the part I like. It seems like a really funny day for kids. And I cannot believe how much work you put into all of this. Just awesome!

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    1. Thanks Mihl - I think it is a fun day for the kids - they had a dress up day for Halloween at Sylvia's school and it was surprising how all the kids really got into it. But I wonder if these structured celebrations take over some of the less structured fun we had as kids - for example we had bonfires but never had a bonfire day!

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  2. And sorry about that food dye. Reading it sounds funny but it must have been awful!

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    1. It took a while to dawn on me so it was only afterwards I thought it was awful

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  3. The monsters are soooo cute! Sadly, M&Ms are most certainly NOT vegan. Maybe you could add to your recipe that if you're vegan, you can use skittles.

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    1. Thanks Robin - sounds like a good idea - have added your suggestion to the post

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  4. Oh no! I am giggling at the red food dye / icing saga but imagine it would have been a shock to discover at the time :S I have bought the actual icing tubes before and do find them much easier for piping than the traditional approach. They do have a tendency to 'bleed' though, so I've learnt the hard way not to do the piping too far ahead of time - overnight is too long.

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    1. Thanks Kari - if I had realised before the lunch, I would not have let the kids have so much fun with it - I just have never seen food dye in a tube like that before. Once it really sunk in I scraped off as much of the dye as possible. They did look very funny with the dye dripping down their chin.

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  5. oh no about the food dye! Though is something I am sure would happen to me. Best intentions and all that! I never knew what rice Krispies were either, same with tater tots (potato gems!!!) Piping icing drives me nuts. I bought one of those super new fangled metal piping things that doubles as a cookies press. Welll you have to keep pumping the damn handle for an hour before the filling works it's way to the nozzle. But every time I use the ziploc bag technique I get too impatient and squeeze too hard so the bag tears!

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    1. Thanks Veganopoulous - I always said potato gems too. It was really surprising to me when I started blogging just how many differences in terminology there were. I once made a recipe for a 'biscuit' and found it was what we called a scone - and wrote a post about it in the my early days of blogging!

      I have one of those metal piping gadgets - they work ok but the pump is annoying - I think a good metal pipe and a bag are probably best - I used to make paper piping bags out of baking paper but then I got lazy and started to look for other solutions - my silicone piping bag is quite good but the pipes have huge nozzles!

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  6. Your cake is gorgeous. I don't get into Halloween very much either - it's just not a thing I grew up with and so it's not part of my holiday celebrations. I do love rice crispies xx

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    1. Thanks Charlie - we hardly eat rice bubbles - sylvia will eat them without milk but I need to find recipes to use them up because I have had to throw out the rest of a few bags - I must seek out some muesli or make more of these rice krispie treats

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  7. Those Monster Rice Krispies are ADORABLE!!! Definitely bookmarking to make next year.

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  8. Haha, that must have been amusing r.e. the food dye but maybe rather worrying for you if you had to send Sylvia's friends home all covered in red. I'd love to try your rice krispy cake recipe - sounds much better than the marshmallow kind to me. And your little monsters are so cute!

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    1. Thanks Emma - I tried to scrub down the kids as much as possible and there was even a bit of swilling out the dye from the mouth. The rice krispy cakes are great - it is inspired by a dreena burton recipe but I added some coconut this time which I really liked

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  9. The rice krispie monsters are really cute. And I accidentally put too much food colouring in a red chocolate fountain but it didn't come out until people ate the chocolate. It was scary until we realised what had happened!

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    1. Thanks Lorraine - sort of reassuring to know I am not the only one to overdo the food colouring - and I guess if we are going to do it then halloween is a good time of year for it :-)

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  10. Sounds like total dye mayhem! I would have been in complete panic about the kids going into hyper overload. How long did it take for the dye to go? I can imagine the twins were having a good laugh at your expense...... what a lovely way to remember them! The monster crispy cakes are fab. Simple, yet so effective!!

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  11. Wow what adorable food you have! The kids must have loved it =)
    Thanks so much for sharing this over at Healthy Vegan Fridays - we have featured your recipe this week!

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  12. I love your rice crispies and monster cake! My Sylvia would be in heaven with all this! Re the dye, I didn't even low it was sold in that form but thanks for the warning :)

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  13. These rice krispies & everything you’ve created for Sylvia and her friends are super super adorable. Sorry about the food dye - that was pretty funny though! At least you made Halloween very entertaining! Well done, Johanna!

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  14. I'm not a fan of halloween either - though I reckon these would work fantastic at a little boys birthday party! No need for halloween then ;-)

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