Rice Krispie Treats are trickier to get right than you might think. Make the rice krispies stick together is easy, but getting the texture right is tricky. Often they're not much more than a brick of cereal that's only good for those who are either teething or desperately hungry.

So I decided to try and find out what is the best Rice Krispies treat out there. Eating them fresh is key, but what else can be done? This Instructable is all about the goal of making the best basic Rice Krispies treat and not about all the other tasty stuff you can add to make it more complex.

OK, let's begin!

Step 1: How to Make Rice Krispie Treats

The basics of making Rice Krispies treats are simple. Here's how it goes:

Over low, low heat, melt the butter in a pot
Once it's melted, add the marshmallows
Still with low heat, stir the marshmallows until thoroughly melted and cook another minute
Turn off heat
Stir in cereal
Transfer to buttered pan
Cover with wax paper and press down
Let cool for 20 minutes and cut it up

If you've made Rice Krispies treats before, all of this should be familiar. I just want to emphasize the low heat. The flame should just tickle the bottom of the pan. Be patient, it still doesn't take that long.

Extra: For easy clean-up, just soak the pot in hot water and give it a few minutes

With the technique down, let's make some treats!

Step 2: Official Recipe

From the Kellogg'sweb site, here's the official recipe:

3 tbsp (42g) butter
4 cups (180g) mini-marshmallows
6 cups (158g) Rice Krispies

It's a decent recipe as everything sticks together, but it's a little unsatisfying. Testers at the office described it as "dense," "dry," and overall "emptier" than the rest, but at least it was the "crunchier" option.

So it's OK, but not exciting. We need some changes!

Step 3: Extra Butter Recipe

This other recipe from allrecipes boosts the butter and reduces the cereal so that there is more butter and more marshmallow per cup of cereal than the original.

4 tbsp (56g) butter
4 cups (180g) mini-marshmallows
5 cups (132g) Rice Krispies

This improves the texture a little bit. Our testers found it to be "gooier," but still "dry" and many couldn't tell much difference between this and the original recipe.

Clearly, more testing was needed.

Step 4: Extra Butter + Milk Recipe

This recipe goes one step further and adds a splash of milk to the butter marshmallow mix.

4 tbsp (56g) butter
4 cups (180g) mini-marshmallows
1.5 teaspoons milk
5 cups (132g) Rice Krispies

The recommendation to add in an extra bit of milk was interesting and we had high hopes, but it didn't change the texture in any noticeable way from the other Extra Butter Recipe. Some testers thought it had a slight flavor improvement, but there was no agreement.

The only thing to do now is take this even further with more marshmallows!

Step 5: More Marshmallows Recipe

This recipe boosts the marshmallows instead of the butter.

4 tbsp (56g) butter
5 cups (225g) mini-marshmallows
5 3/4 cups (152g) Rice Krispies

This recipe was by far the favorite out of all of them for the testers. They said it was "the best" and "deliciously gooey." While the testers had to think about the differences between the others, this was a quick decision. Of the dozen testers, only one thought it was too gooey.

If there's any one recipe to make for the gooey treats, make this one and eat it fresh. It's totally worth it and don't worry about eating more marshmallows. Goo is good for you!

Step 6: Bonus #1: More Butter With Vanilla

Since we were going strong with the other recipes, we also tried out a recipe that added a splash of vanilla. All we found out is that if you like vanilla you might like the added flavor here. This recipe evenly split our testers between thinking that it added a little extra and thinking that it was going in the wrong direction.

Step 7: Bonus #2: Peanut Butter and Chocolate Recipe

Starting with the More Butter Recipe, add a 1/2 cup of creamy peanut butter to the marshmallow mixture.

We added to it by drizzling melted chocolate on top.

The results here were again mixed. Some dug it, others thought it was too much. Ah well.

In the future we might try some other more extreme variations. Meanwhile, if you have any favorite recipes to share please do so in the comments!