What is better than a good old fashioned Rice Krispie treat?

A trashed up Rice Krispie treat!

I wanted to bake for a friends birthday recently, and when I think birthday, I tend to lean toward flavors from childhood. My first thought is: sprinkles. Which is my first thought everyday really. I decided to go with Rice Krispie treats to switch it up from some of my latest baking endeavors. I knew I would have to add more than just sprinkles, so the next thought was white chocolate chips. And then I realized only I can handle that level of sugar, so I decided to add pretzels to the mix to cut the sweetness. And thus, these were born:

White chocolate pretzel Rice Krispie treats

Yields approximately 24 cupcake sized portions

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter (one stick)
• 2 10 oz bags of mini marshmallows
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 8 cups of Rice Krispie cereal
• 1 and 1/2 cups chopped pretzels (I used mini pretzel sticks)
• 1/2 to 3/4 of a 10 oz bag of white chocolate chips (more or less to taste)
• Rainbow Sprinkles!

Method

1. Melt the butter in a pot over low to medium heat on the stove.
2. In a separate large bowl combine the pretzels, half a bag of marshmallows, and half of the Rice Krispies. Putting some of the marshmallows in this mixture will vary the marshmallow texture, which I enjoy.
3. Add the remaining one and a half bags of marshmallows to the butter, and stir so it doesn’t burn on the bottom.
4. Once the marshmallows are melted and the mixture is homogeneous (probably 3-5 minutes), add the vanilla extract, and the other half of the Rice Krispies to the marshmallow and butter mixture and stir until they are well incorperated.
5. Add the warm marshmallow mixture to the large bowl of other ingredients and mix so the mixture is uniform.
6. Stir in the white chocolate chips and rainbow sprinkles last so they do not melt completely.
7. Portion into muffin tins with liners (I find this the easiest way to manage Rice Krispie treat presentation) and allow to cool at room temperature or in the fridge.

Before:

After: