{Just Like Mom Made} Mars Bars Squares

If you have been reading the blog long enough, you know that my mother passed away almost three years ago.  There are so many things I wish I had the chance to ask her, and so many things I wish I knew... including some of the food she made!   I would seriously give anything to have homemade chicken soup the way she made it - even my culinary trained husband can't recreate it.

When I was growing up, my mom always kept her favourite recipes in an index card holder (a practice that I actually adopted when I moved out to university).  I'd imagine that the original plan was to neatly print every favorite recipe onto an index card and organize them in the box, but let's be real.  My mom had five children.  You can imagine how much time she had for that.  So the index box ended up being a mishmashed mix of scrap paper and magazine cutouts.

After my mom passed, my brother laid claim to that little yellow index card holder, even though he doesn't cook or bake, but none of us were going to fight over anything, which we amazingly didn't.  I did however find some loose recipes on scraps of paper that I snatched up and now hold very dear because they were hers.  Some of them I have never tried, and she labelled things with the weirdest names.  Banana Loaf?  Thanks mom, the rest of the world calls it Banana Bread.  And Chocolate Custard Bars?  Oh... you mean Nanaimo Bars?  Geesh.  And I think my mom had an affinity for candy bar recipes - of the handful I managed to keep, we have Twix bars, Kit Kat dessert, and Mars Bars Squares.  The recipe cards are old and yellowed, and some are torn by now, but I still love them.  

Maybe this had to do with the weird labelling, but when we were growing up, we never called things "squares".  They were "cookies".  Like rice krispie cookies, not rice krispie squares.  So this recipe, to us, was always Mars Bars Cookies.  This caused great dissention between my husband and I, who insisted cookies must be baked.  I still call them cookies, but for your sake, I will call these squares.

This is the easiest and quickest recipe there is.  I'm even going to say its easier than rice krispie "cookies" because you don't have to deal with the mess of marshmallows.  Four ingredients, less than ten minutes, and there you have it - chewy, caramel-y, crunchy goodness, just like mom made them... or my mom anyway!

I hope you enjoy!  They are best enjoyed cold, on your deck, with a bunch of girlfriends!

Mars Bars Squares

2 cups rice krispies cereal

4 Mars bars

1/2 cup butter

1-1/2 cups chocolate chips

1. Melt butter and Mars bars in the microwave

2. Stir in cereal and pour into a greased 8x8 baking dish

3. Melt chocolate and pour over the top.  

4. Refrigerate to set, then cut into squares.

5. Try not to eat them all in one sitting.  (This step is the hardest.)

P.S.  I sent a few home with a friend, and the next day I received this text: "Those squares were amazing.  They had cereal in them so I decided to eat them for breakfast".  I love my friends!