Butterscotch-Chocolate Corn Flake Treats

And committing, for now

Something you might not know about me is I love interior design. On my “alt” account, which is just the personal account I’ve had for years before easygayoven, I follow almost no foodies and instead almost all interior designers and decorators. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at my apartment! I have a perfectionist streak, expensive taste, and little disposable income, which has resulted in my having not even tried to decorate the apartment I’ve lived in for a year and a half.

A stack of framed art has been precariously leaned up against my dresser since I moved in, clattering down every time I even look at it wrong. They watched as I hung up my full length mirror and stopped at that. Anyway, a friend of mine who works in art (like, galleries, I guess) came over to my apartment last week, and before they headed out the door, I thought, Wait, before you leave... We laid out the art I have, and I asked them where I should hang the pictures. They looked down at the art, then looked at the walls and said, “What are you afraid of?” And without thinking — but also with my intense need to make a joke, no matter how easy it is — I said, “Commitment.”

He of course was talking about, like, symmetry. For months, I have been telling myself I don’t want to hang up the pictures because I’ve been meaning to get the room painted by my landlord. (We finally got the roof fixed, which has taken up most of my time and correspondence on the home front, in case you’ve been following along.) But of course, I could always just take the pictures down when that happens. And then I told myself I didn’t want to hang them up because I didn’t know how long I’d be staying. Would I get tired of having roommates again after one year? Would our rent be so exorbitantly raised that we’d all have to leave? But I know the truth is I didn’t hang them because I didn’t want them to look wrong, or make holes in the walls that I would then have to cover up, or somehow otherwise say, this is official, this is real, this is your life, you live here.

Anyway, the friend did help me and I DID hang the art up this weekend. And I don’t even like these pieces (!) but they’re up and now it looks like someone actually might live in my room. There’s something else that I just committed to that is bigger than nail holes in dry wall, but it’s exciting. Commitment doesn’t always have to mean forever or permanent. It might be better sometimes to commit, for now, instead of committing to doing nothing, forever.

Next project: New bathroom fan!

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📺 TV: Alison Hammond Saving Bake-Off 
Since I went full-time with this horse and pony show about a year and a half ago, I had stopped watching one of my favorite shows: The Great British Bake Off. (Or as it’s titled in the US, The Great British Baking Show, because Pillsbury owns that trademark here and I will never stop pointing that out because I just think it’s funny.) Watching a baking show is just a little too close to home when your baking all day, and with a move to Channel 4 from the BBC, as well as the revolving door of hosts and judges, some better than others, the show just lost a lot of its charm. (Plus, Mexico Week.) With the departure of Matt Lucas and the arrival of the hilarious, wonderful This Morning host Alison Hammond (go look up compilations of her on that show) the vibe in the tent is much better this season — so I’m watching!

📱 Social Media: Kyla Scanlon on TikTok
I’ve never been an economics expert, or even someone who remotely understands it, but I came across Kyla Scanlon’s work on TikTok a few months ago and now I’m saying things like “core inflation.” Her slap-dash editing and dry sense of humor are engaging and her Katie Porter-style use of a whiteboard makes big nebulous econ topics easy to understand, and understand how they impact you.

Updates

None! Working hard on some partner recipes that I think you’ll like!

This Week’s Recipe

So these are like Scotcheroos, but you don’t have to cook them over the stove using corn syrup and sugar. Instead, they’re made with marshmallows, brown butter, butterscotch chips, and Corn Flakes — not Rice Krispies. I just liked the texture of Corn Flakes better here.

The butterscotch flavor is amped up with nutty, toffee-scented brown butter, as well as some vanilla (I used vanilla bean paste), and lots of salt in the bars as well as flakey salt on the topping. Between the chocolate, marshmallows and butterscotch chips, these would otherwise be overly sweet. I like to mix in 10 ounces (about one bag) of mini marshmallows into the browned butter, then add another half a bag after the cornflakes have been incorporated. This gives you little pockets of full marshmallow, but it’s optional if you just want to buy one bag of marshmallows.

The best part? The actual bars are mixed in one pot. I used a large dutch oven to brown the butter — but be careful. Because it’s so shallow, the butter can go from browned to burnt faster than in a saucepan. Then to cool off the butter quickly, toss in the mallows, butterscotch chips, vanilla and salt. Turn off the heat and mix vigorously until all the marshmallows have melted, then add the cornflakes and, once those are incorporated, the remaining marshmallows.

If you had a big enough mixing bowl, you could even use the empty dutch oven to melt the chocolate for the topping. Just pour about an inch of water into the dutch oven, bring it to a gentle simmer and place a large mixing bowl on top where you can melt the finely chopped chocolate. (This also helps the sticky leftovers from the bars melt off the sides of the pan, making it much easier to clean later.)

As Mary Berry always says, “chocolate melts in a child’s pocket.” Which is just to say, it takes very little heat to melt chocolate, so you could even bring the pot to a simmer, then turn the heat off entirely while you stir it with a rubber spatula. We’re not trying to temper chocolate here, but we also don’t want to make it seize up. Once there are just a few lumps of unmelted chocolate, you can even remove the bowl from the pot and allow the residual heat to take care of it. It’s all about low and slow, being patient, and trusting that the warmth will melt the chocolate eventually.

I never said I can cut evenly, folks…

Butterscotch-Chocolate Corn Flake Treats

Makes 16 bars

Ingredients

3/4 cup unsalted butter (170 grams)

10 ounces mini marshmallows (about 1 bag)

5 ounces mini marshmallows (about half a bag, optional)

Scant 1/2 cup butterscotch chips (80 grams)

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt

9 oz Corn Flakes cereal (about 7 cups)

8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped (no chocolate chips)

Flakey salt (optional)

Directions

1. Have all your ingredients ready and measured out.

2. Grease a 9x9-inch tin and line with a piece of parchment paper so that there’s a bit of overhang on the sides.

3. Brown the butter. In a large dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Cook the butter, stirring and scraping the bottom occasionally, until it begins to bubble and pop. When you no longer hear bubbling and popping — that’s when all the water has been cooked off and the browning process will happen very quickly, so keep both eyes on it. Continue cooking until it starts foaming and you can see brown flecks swimming in the butter when you stir. Remove from heat immediately.

4. Pour in the marshmallows and stir with a rubber spatula to cool off the butter slightly. Then, dump in the butterscotch chips, vanilla and salt and stir vigorously until all the marshmallows are melted and the butter is totally incorporated. There should be enough heat from the pot to do this but you might need to return it to the stove over very low heat to melt the remaining marshmallows.

5. Dump the Corn Flakes in and fold the mixture until it’s 90 percent incorporated, then fold in the remaining mini marshmallows, if using.

6. Spread the mixture into the prepared tin and tamp it down with the rubber spatula. Ensure it gets into every nook and cranny of the tin by wetting your hands slightly and pressing it so it’s level and reaches all the way to the edges. Set aside to cool.

7. Make the chocolate topping. In a large heat-safe bowl over a saucepan with an inch of barely simmering water, add the finely chopped chocolate. Melt, scraping the bowl often until there are just a few lumps of unmelted chocolate, then remove the bowl from the pot and allow the residual heat to melt the rest. Spread the chocolate evenly over the bars then top with flakey sea salt, if desired.

8. Once the chocolate has fully set and the bottom of the tin is cool to the touch (about 1 hour) remove the bars from their tin using the parchment as a sling. Cut with a long, sharp knife into 16 or even 25 squares.