No-Bake Chocolate Puffed Rice Bars
An easy, no-bake rice crispy treat topped with dark chocolate and roasted pistachios. The perfect combination of salty and sweet.
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp ghee or butter divided
- 200 g jaggery grated
- 3 cups kurmure/puffed rice (can substitute rice crispy cereal)
- ½ tsp salt
- 6 oz dark chocolate broken into pieces
- pinch of sugar
- ¼ cup shelled, roasted, and salted pistachios crushed
Instructions
- Grease an 8-by-8-inch baking dish with butter. Set aside.
- In a heavy-bottomed pan, melt 1 tbsp of ghee or butter on low heat. Then add the grated jaggery and melt it slowly. Keep stirring constantly. You have to make hard or "pukka" syrup. We call it a hard syrup because as the syrup cools down, it hardens and makes the bars crunchy. After a few minutes of simmering, test the syrup for readiness by dipping a metal spatula in the jaggery and holding it above the mixture. As the melted jaggery drips from the spatula, look carefully at the dripping liquid. If the syrup is ready, you will see tiny strings stemming from the dripping liquid at a 90-degree angle. It takes only 5-7 minutes to make this syrup but make sure you don't burn the jaggery, otherwise, your bars will be dark. The perfect crunch of the bars is the indicator of perfectly made syrup. Hard, teeth breaking bars are the indicator of an overcooked syrup and chewy bars are the indicator of an undercooked syrup.
- Once the syrup is ready, add the puffed rice and salt, reduce the heat, and keep stirring until all the puffed rice is coated with the syrup.
- Pour the hot mixture into the buttered pan and quickly flatten it with a spatula or the bottom of a glass until it evenly reaches all the edges of the pan. Let it cool completely.
- Melt the dark chocolate pieces with the remaining 1 tbsp of ghee or butter in a microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring after each 30 seconds. If you want, you can add a pinch of sugar to the chocolate to sweeten it up slightly.
- Pour the melted chocolate evenly on the flattened puffed rice. Sprinkle with the crushed pistachios. Let the chocolate harden and set for about 3-4 hours and then cut into about 16 pieces with a sharp knife.
- Store these bars at room temperature in an air-tight container. These delicious bars should stay fresh for up to one week.