In the Kitchen: Mars Bar Cake

Just in time for Easter, the Husband had the good idea to make a Mars Bar cake to bring to some of our friends. Then Yours Truly had the good idea to get enough of everything to make some for us to keep, too. I picked up the ingredients from the store in the morning with E and once he was down for his nap, I got to work.

5-7 Mars Bars
1-2 tbl butter
about 2 cups puffed rice cereal
2 bars chocolate
Cadbury's Mini Eggs (or other decoration)

1) Melt the butter in a pot on medium heat.
2) While the butter melts, chop up the Mars Bars and add to the pot. Remember to stir frequently so the chocolate and nougat don't burn.
3) Once the Mars Bars are melted, turn off the heat, toss in the rice cereal, and stir. I should have measured for this recipe, but you can just add cereal until the mixture reaches the consistency you'd prefer.
4) Dump the mix into a pie plate or casserole dish and smooth out the top.
5) Chop or break your chocolate bars into small pieces and melt. I usually do this with a double boiler, but this time I opted for the microwave. Just stick it in for 20 seconds at a time, then take out the bowl and stir. This way, the chocolate at the middle doesn't burn while other bits barely melt at all.
6) Get a silicone spatula and smooth the melted chocolate over the top of the Mars Bar & Rice Krispie mix.
7) While the chocolate is still liquid, pop on Cadbury's Mini Eggs, or whatever other candy you want to decorate with. At Valentine's, candy heart could be cute, or at Halloween, those tiny sugar pumpkins.
8) Leave everything to cool and cut into individual servings. (I rarely ever top this with candy, but having done it this time it's easier to see how to make all the pieces a more uniform size!)

I love this stuff. The only reason I don't make Rice Krispie bar-type desserts more often is that they don't last long in our house! Seriously; I made regular marshmallow-and-Rice-Krispie bars the other week and they barely lasted 24 hours. We go nuts for this stuff. And it's dead simple to put together. Enjoy!