Toffee Marshmallow Crispies #ReadCookEat

School is back tomorrow. To sweeten the bitter pill, Eddie and I made a big batch of Toffee Marshmallow Crispies yesterday.
Having read Jane Linfoot's The Little Cornish Kitchen (<--- click for my book review) I've bookmarked a few food descriptions as an inspiration. If you are a foodie and enjoy baking, you will be drooling over numerous desserts featured in the book, from the pastel-coloured macaroons to a decadent chocolate roulade, from lemon meringues to berry sorbets, from the most delicious Eton Mess with lemon curd to a chocolate mousse cake with strawberries...

As Clemmie, the main heroine of the novel, masters the art of patisserie, the food descriptions become more and more sinful. I swear my waistline was expanding, just reading them.

I fancied making lemon cupcakes with blackberry frosting, but my piping skills are rather lame. I might try the idea one day when I'm feeling brave.

But it's the easy Toffee Marshmallow Crispies that I knew would be a big hit with my guys.
I've googled for a recipe, and found one for Toffeee and Marshmallow Rice Crispies on BBC Good Food.

These sweet treats appear in one of the later scenes in the book:

Jenny's beaming at us. "If you'd like to drink to that with tea back at the house, I've made some of Laura's special toffee crispie".
"You have?" Rob and I both turn together.
I'm thinking of the recipe cards. "With the marshmallows in?"
Another of my childhood favourites.
Jenny nods. "That's the one. It must be fifty years since she gave me that recipe..."
Rob's smiling. "I always licked out the saucepan for that."
"Me too." My mouth is watering as I recall the taste. There was nothing quite like that sticky sweetness.

Who could resist such a treat?!

For the full recipe please use the link above, on BBC Good Food site. I followed their recipe exactly as stated.

I didn't have soft butter toffees, and actually couldn't find soft toffees anywhere. Are soft toffees and fudge the same thing? Anyway, I bought a packet of butter toffees (Waitrose own), which are pretty hard and sticky-brittle, the type that when you bite into one, your teeth get cemented to it.

I wasn't sure if these toffees were going to melt, but they did melt.
Use a big  heavy duty pan for this job, and one that you don't worry about scratching later, when you need to clean it.
Melt 50g butter with 200g toffees, then throw in the marshmallows and keep stirring until you have a gloopy sticky mess.

Then add the rice crispies and mix thoroughly. The melted toffee starts to set pretty fast, so you need to act quickly.
Line a square brownie tin with foil or parchment paper and oil a little bit. Scoop the rice crispie into the tin and pat with a wooden spatula to flatten it.

It will be ready to cut in less than half an hour. It will be a bit soft at this point.

My boys loved it, and would have gobbled up the whole lot, if I didn't ration it.

Thank you to Laura and Clemmie for the inspiration - and of course, Jane Linfoot! - for writing such irresistible food descriptions!

Have you read a book recently which inspired you to run to the kitchen and cook to your heart's content?

I hope you are inspired by books to join in the #ReadCookEat challenge.

The idea is to choose a book, either a world classic or modern fiction, or even memoirs and pick up a dish mentioned or described in that book and then recreate it in a recipe. Please say a few lines about your chosen book, and maybe even do a quote from the book.

If you decide to take part, please add the badge to your post and link up back to me, and either use a link-up tool or add the url of your post as a comment. Alternatively, email me with the link to your post (my email is sasha1703 at yahoo dot com).

I will Pin all blog posts taking part in this challenge, as well as RT and Google+