We Should Cocoa: Halloween Chocolate Krispie Monsters

First I must confess this is not an original idea; I saw a picture of these somewhere on pinterest and rather liked the idea of very chocolate rich rice crispie cakes turned into monsters for halloween. Some of the eyes have not worked so well but I think you get the idea.

These are a little fiddly to make as the rice crispie cake blobs are allowed to set and are then dipped in tempered chocolate before quickly adding the smartie eyes and then at the end piping some chocolate pupils to the eyes.

I was planning on making a lot more but quickly tired of carefully spooning out the rice crispie mix into mounds. It was fiddly to get the mound into a nice even shape without dropping bits or getting too straggly edges that might drop off when dipping.

If you already have a favourite chocolate crispie recipe do use that but you will need a mix that is not too dry. Whenever I make things like this I use a mix of milk and dark chocolate to reduce the sweetness and up the cocoa flavour, but all milk would be more traditional.

Second confession is that I have no idea how much chocolate you will need for the dipping. I do a lot of home chocolate making so have large bags of couverture chips in store and to make dipping easier I always work with about 750g or more. What is left over is then used for the next chocolate bake or confection. If you do not feel like dipping your monsters you could get away with just sticking the smartie eyes on the bare mounds but the faces will be so cute or, more importantly, so chocolaty. You could use a chocolate flavoured candy covering/melt for easy dipping but then the scary element would be the taste and texture rather than the look.

Recipe
150g milk chocolate (or milk/dark mix) broken into pieces
50g butter
60ml golden syrup
100g rice crispies

Extra chocolate for dipping, preferably tempered to get the best finish.
Smarties for eyes
2 baking trays lined with baking parchment

• If your rice crispie packet has been open a while and you live in a damp climate like I do then you might want to dry the crispies out in a low oven (80C) for 20 minutes or so first.
• Put the chocolate, butter and golden syrup into a large bowl and gently microwave (or place over a pan of warm water) to melt.
• Add the crispies into the chocolate, butter, syrup mix and stir gently but thoroughly to make sure all the crispies are well coated with chocolate.
• Using dessertspoons carefully place mounds of the mix onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper.
• Push any straggly edges back into the mound. Try to leave a slightly flattened top to the mound to make it easier to fix the smarties eyes on later.
• Allow to set in a cool place and if leaving overnight make sure they are in an airtight container.
• Melt/ temper the chocolate for dipping and then one at a time using a chocolate fork or large tined dinner fork dip each crispie mound into the pool and gently tap off excess chocolate.
• Carefully transfer the dipped mound onto a second parchment lined baking tray.
• Place the smartie eyes onto each monster as you go. If the outer coat has set before you get the eyes on, put a drop of melted chocolate onto one side of the smarties and then pop it chocolate side down onto the mound.
• Once all the mounds are dipped and eyes are on, put some of the remaining melted chocolate into a piping bag and pipe chocolate pupils onto each one in as spooky a manner as you see fit.

I am submitting my chocolate monsters to this month's We Should Cocoa challenge. The October 2014 challenge is being guest hosted by Hannah of  Honey & Dough.

Happy Monster Munching!