Ditch The Marshmallows And Roast Rice Krispies Treats At Your Next Campfire

Roasting marshmallows over the fire and assembling chocolate-laden s'mores might just be the best thing about camping. However, this does involve remembering to pack graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate along with all the other paraphernalia required for cooking over an open flame. 

Luckily, you can ditch packing the marshmallows next time you're pitching a tent in the great outdoors, and just roast store-bought Rice Krispies Treats instead. This awesome move eliminates all the messy work of squishing a marshmallow between a pair of crackers, but offers all the same gooey goodness.

Rice Krispies Treats are a basic mix of puffed rice, marshmallow, and sugar syrup, which is why they're perfect for roasting over a campfire. To get started, simply unwrap your store-bought bars and spear them onto a metal skewer (or a twig sourced from the forest floor), just as you would with a marshmallow. Hold the snack bar over the coals from a safe distance, and turn it regularly. Keeping the Rice Krispies Treats moving will ensure that they don't burn, and will give the marshmallow content plenty of time to gently melt and develop a golden, tender surface that's soft and gooey. This technique is particularly useful at nighttime, when cold temperatures cause the texture of Rice Krispies Treats to toughen up. The heat from the campfire softens them so that they're easier to chew and enjoy in the moonlight.

An easy way to upgrade your roasted Rice Krispies Treats is to sandwich them between a couple of squares of chocolate while they're still hot. The residual heat will melt the chocolate. You can also dip the edges of the Rice Krispies Treat into a jar of peanut butter, press on some sprinkles, or squash M&M's onto the sticky surface.

Got a stash of homemade jazzed-up Rice Krispies Treats that combine add-ins like sprinkles, chocolate chips, or nuts? You can roast them in the same way over your campfire, with a small caveat — keep a vigilant eye on them to make sure that they don't burn over the fierce heat of the fire. You're looking to reach that sweet spot where the marshmallow has become slightly gooey, and the add-ins have softened to the perfect texture without becoming bitter and crunchy. 

Once you've mastered the art of roasting your treats into meltingly soft delights, try swapping the Rice Krispies in your marshmallow treats for other cereals, like Cocoa Puffs or Cinnamon Toast Crunch. This simple switch is an awesome way to put a fun twist on a classic — plus it means that you can use up the leftover bits of cereal in your pantry that are languishing at the bottom of the box.