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Thursday, February 3, 2011

Of childhood things

Some childhood rituals are timeless.  There are things that we can be sure that our parents did and that our great grandchildren will be doing many years from now. Like throwing a stick into a river and watching it float out from under a bridge, falling down and scraping a knee, or squirming whilst a fussing mother smears your face clean with a hankie.

And amongst these rituals, in fact jostling for a top position in my opinion, is making chocolate crispie cakes. Stirring the velvety chocolate into the crunchy cereal and bringing a wooden spoon up to your mouth for a stolen lick is a rite of passage. I cannot see one of these knobbly brown creations without getting hit by a heavy dose of nostalgia.

I updated the classic slightly when I cooked these with my children this week, although I can see that some might think this to be messing with a masterpiece!  My version is ever so slightly more nutritious. I used one of our favourites, peanut butter and some healthier 'sprinkles', sesame seeds.




I think about half of the mixture escaped uneaten ...



so we were able to make lots of little crispy cakes.




1. Melt 150g peanut butter (I used the Whole Earth Crunchy which doesn't have any added sugar) with 150g of good quality chocolate

2. Allow to cool then let your child stir in 150g of Bran Flakes and 25g sesame seeds (some children can have a sesame allergy so leave these out if you are not sure)

3.  Help them to spoon into cake cases and put into the fridge to harden.

4.  Eat and enjoy!