Happy Halloween! In an attempt to celebrate Halloween as best I can in a land without much need for Halloween, I did a good deal of Halloween-themed baking. Of course, this cannot technically be called baking. It involves melting some stuff on the stove top, but that is the extent to which electricity is involved.

And here you will have to use your imagination in picturing that these lumps of chocolate Rice Krispie treats are little brown mice rather than, say, unappetizing logs of… dog excrement. (The imagination has to be even harder at work upon noting that the silver dragee candy pieces I tried to use for eyes refused to stick.)

Instead of the standard baking tools, this ends up being all about the hands. My hands were covered in the sticky mixture of melted butter and marshmallow… shaping the “dough” of Rice Krispie treats into haphazard mice shapes.

The good goo of Rice Krispie treats. Not to be confused with the "good goo" required for the inception of life. (Why on Halloween am I so fixated with juxtaposing descriptions of baked treats/ingredients with altogether less palatable functions, such as, dog poo and human semen?!)

In any case, a lack of time won out over best intentions, as it seems to do every time (not to mention the dearth of good materials with which to work… I needed candy corn and it was nowhere to be found… sometimes it can be found at Deli De Luca outlets in Oslo, but of course never when I need it).

Chocolate Rice Krispie treats (pictures to follow)

¼ cup butter
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
10 ounces/40 large/4 cups mini marshmallows
6 cups Rice Krispies cereal
1 teaspoon vanilla
(silver dragees for eyes? almond sliver pieces for ears? licorice strings for tail)

Melt butter and marshmallow on medium-low on the stove top. Stir in cocoa and vanilla. Remove from heat. Stir into Rice Krispies until all the cereal is well-coated. Form the mixture into whatever shapes you wish or just press into a buttered 13×9 pan (cut squares when cool).

I made the dubious attempt of forming little mice with mine. I tried to give them ears from pieces of almond slivers and eyes with silver dragee candy, but none of this worked out.