Rice Krispie Buns are part of every Irish childhood.  These little chocolate crispie treats are the centerpieces of Irish birthday parties, and a staple at school fund raising cake sales.  They’re easy-to-make, no-bake Irish children’s favorites.

Now when I first moved stateside I was surprised to discover American Rice Krispie Treats are something entirely different.

The American variety is an extremely sweet, sticky, marshmallow and rice cereal square. Not a morsel of chocolate to be found.

In Ireland, America’s beloved Rice Krispie Treats are now available to be purchased as ‘Squares Bars’ made by Kelloggs. But they’ll never replace our Irish Rice Krispie Buns.

These are a simple, but delicious mixture of melted chocolate and rice cereal, shaped in a muffin pan and given the title ‘bun.’  No batter or dough required for these famous buns.

Check out how to make them in this short video.  You’ll also find the printable recipe at the end of this post.

Rice Krispie Buns could not be easier to make. Melted chocolate mixed with rice cereal, that’s all that is required, and if you want to make them a little bit fancy, you can add a candy on top. Milk chocolate rather than dark chocolate is usually chosen, especially for children.

When I was a little girl in Dublin in the 1970’s there were no chocolate chips to be bought. Slabs of cooking chocoate were sold in supermarkets. Or if you were really posh, you could melt bars of dairy milk chocolate.

Times have changed in Ireland and chocolate chips are easily found in grocery stores. They’re sold in 4 ounce bags not the larger bags sold in America.

The key to good rice krispie buns is getting the ratio of chocolate to cereal correct. Too little chocolate and the rice krispies will shine through, yielding a light colored bun.

Here is the ratio I like:

2 cups of rice cereal to 4 ounces of chocolate chips.

That translates to 6 cups of rice cereal for an 11.9 ounce bag of chocolate chips, as sold in America. Now that will yield around 36 rice krispie buns.

I usually use 4 cups of cereal to 8 ounces of chocolate or roughly 2/3’s of a bag of chocolate chips to make about 24 buns.

I don’t bother weighing the chocolate chips but eyeball two-thirds of a bag. You can’t go wrong with a little extra chocolate.

Place muffin case liners in two trays.

You don’t necessarily need to use a muffin tray and can simply fill the liners with the mixture.  However, I find the metal tray helps the buns to maintain their shape as they harden and become firm.

Melt the chocolate chips in a heat proof bowl over a saucepan of boiled water, otherwise known as a bain marie.

Pour the melted chocolate over the rice cereal in a large bowl.

Protect your fingers with oven gloves as you handle the hot bowl of melted chocolate.

Use a spatula to scrape all the melted chocolate out of the bowl.

Use a spatula to mix the melted chocolate and rice cereal together.

Be gentle as you combine the ingredients. If you stir too violently the rice cereal will crumble and your buns will lack their distinctive cereal air pockets.

You need to blend the chocolate and cereal thoroughly to ensure all of the rice krispies are fully coated in chocolate. Scoop down into the bottom of the bowl to mix the cereal hiding way down there.

Spoon the mixture into the lined muffin cases.

The number of buns yielded by this recipe depends on how much you fill each muffin compartment.

Top each bun with a Smartie, if you’re in Ireland, or an M&M if you’re in America.

Set the buns aside to cool and allow the chocolate to harden again.

And that’s all there is to it.  Ireland’s favorite children’s treat are beyond easy to make, but will never lose their appeal.

Here’s the printable recipe:

 

When some Irish mother’s hear there is a cake sale or bake sale at their child’s school they slave for hours over a hot stove baking their finest confectioneries.

Little do they know, the treats that sell out first and are in highest demand are these no-fuss, easy peasy rice krispie buns.

What’s a cake sale without rice krispie buns.

At Halloween I love to get creative and I use this basic Irish rice krispie bun recipe to create chocolate spiders. These make a lovely center piece for Halloween get togethers. Here’s how I make my Chocolate Rice Krispie Spiders for Halloween.

For those of you who were born in Ireland, I hope this post brought back happy memories of childhood birthday parties, and for all my Irish American readers I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial about Irish Rice Krispie Treats.

 

Slán agus beannacht,
(Goodbye and blessings)

 

Irish American Mom