Trick... or treat? For the latest Chow Bella showdown, our writers whipped up a dessert reminiscent of, or incorporating, their favorite Halloween candy. Check back all week for recipes; on Friday our critic Laura Hahnefeld will pick her favorite.
Today: Ando Muneno's candy sushi
For this competition I wanted to do something a little different so I used my lateral thinking to steal be inspired by the Epic Meal Time guys. After some intense research (read: I watched an hour of youtube videos) I decided that candy sushi would meet the dual qualifications of looking cool and tasting good.
See also: - Make Your Own Candy Corn - Make Your Own Black Vodka
At that point my lovely co-cook and I headed to the local Safeway on a fact-finding mission to address our candy sushi filling needs. We rounded up the basics, Kit Kats, Butter Fingers, etc and then headed over to Lee Lee Oriental Market to round out our collection with some Asian candy like Pocky and Kasugai Gummy candies.
Clearly, if you've never made rice crispy treats, now is the time to learn. The recipe is on the back of pretty much any bag of marshmallows. If not it's pretty straightforward:
- Melt 1/2 stick of non-salt butter in a large pot over low heat.
- Dump in a whole bag of marshmallows.
- Heat and stir on low heat until marshmallows are completely liquid.
- Dump in the cereal of your choice and mix as quickly as possible so that there's an equal distribution of marshmallow/butter over everything.
- Press into oiled container of your choice.
While the Epic Meal Time video gives the basic overview, here are a few more pointers:
- When you prepare the rice crispy treats, don't use the whole bag of rice krispies. This increases the ratio of molten marshmallow to rice crispy and makes it easier to work with.
- Make sure you aggressively smash your rice crispy treats thin. 1/4 inch seemed to be about right to thin and all the filling falls out, too think and it's impossible to eat.
- Roll your candy sushi before trying to put the fruit rollups on. It's much easier to stretch them onto a roll than it is to try and roll it like real sushi.
- Throw your fruit rollups in the freezer for a minute or so just prior to stretching them over your candy sushi. This makes peeling them off their backing easier. Don't let them freeze though, frozen fruit rollup shatters like glass which is cool but not what we're going for.
- After they're all rolled up, pop them in the fridge to firm up. Trying to cut warm candy inside of warm rice crispy is a fools errand.
Suggested fillings:
- Nutella and anything: This can be hard to roll but if you can roll it, wrap it and get it to the fridge, the results are delicious.
- Pocky and Kasugai fruit gummies: The chocolate and pretzel of the pocky is a nice flavor and texture contrast to the chewy sweetness of the gummy.
- Butter Fingers: It actually slices quite nicely.
