How the heck long have I been doing this anyway? It doesn’t matter; the mad-kitchen scientist is back for another season of recipes to make your Buffalo Bills game days even more memorable.
For those of you new to this, it’s pretty simple. We love the Bills. We love food. Every week, you’ll get a themed recipe based on the Bills and their opponent.
What could be sweeter than your favorite team on Monday Night Football? This Minnesota-inspired cereal treat gives it a run for its money. Making this a bit
more “Buffalo” was pretty easy, too.
Scotcheerios
The Vikings are a fun team for this series because they’re not a frequent opponent for the Bills, which means there’s still plenty to explore. When diving into Minnesota culture I came across scotcheroos, which is a type of cereal treat bar where the binding ingredient starts with corn syrup rather than marshmallow.
The base recipe uses crispy rice cereal and straight corn syrup for the liquid sugar. I swap out the rice cereal and use the more “Buffalo” cereal of Honey Nut Cheerios, and then augment that flavor profile with a partial substitution on the corn syrup.
Aside from that, this recipe is basically the same as this one from the Karo Syrup website, and I like to give credit where it’s due when my recipe doesn’t deviate all that much from someone else’s work.
Scotcheerios
Makes: About 20 treats
Active time: 20 min
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips
3/4 cup light corn syrup (yes I used Karo and yes they should cut me an endorsement check)
1/4 cup honey
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter
6 cups Honey Nut Cheerios (they also should cut me an endorsement check)
Essentials: Greased 9×13 pan (use glass and thank me later), medium sauce pan, large glass bowl, high-sided sauté pan, large mixing bowl, measuring cups, rubber spatulas
- Partially fill the high-sided sauté pan with water; place the glass bowl in the pan (see below, and be careful of splashing).
- Add chocolate and butterscotch chips to the bowl; turn heat to MED (about 4 of 10 on my stove); continue with step 3 while allowing chips to melt.
- Add corn syrup, honey, and sugar to sauce pan on MED/HIGH (about 7 of 10 on my stove).
- Continuously stir syrup-sugar mixture until it begins to bubble; reduce heat to MED (4 of 10) and stir for another 2 min.
- Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter.
- Add cereal to large mixing bowl; quickly fold in syrup-peanut butter mixture.
- Carefully pour into greased pan and press to get even bars.
- Stir chocolate-butterscotch chips until smooth, then quickly spread on top of cereal mixture in pan.
- Cool for 45 min or longer; cut, and serve
Wingin’ It tips
If you’re not familiar with the melting technique I used, this is a cheap way to make a double boiler. The first picture shows how to set it up. Chocolate is a fan of scorching and just melting in a pan requires constant attention and/or very low temperature. This method has the water distribute the heat evenly and avoids the scorching. It’s not without peril though. If you’ve ever gotten so much as even a drop of water in melted chocolate you know what a nightmare that is. If you need to go higher heat to get a good melt, be careful of steam as it can collect on the bowl edges and screw things up.
The next pictures are the initial and later stages of combining the syrup and sugar. It looks like it won’t work, but applying heat will lead to a smooth consistency. I was a little more precise with my stove settings this week, and that’s always a good plan with hot sugars. Like the chocolate, it’s easy to scorch. And while the corn syrup might be a bit forgiving, the honey will not be.
That’s really it for tips though. These are super easy and when in doubt, it’s easy to start with lower temps and increase as needed.
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