Rice Crispy Robot from the moon.

As promise in my last post 'here'  today I'm going to post about the making of the Birthday robot. I don't really do much cooking here at the Summerhouse, it's not because I don't love to cook, I really do but these days I find it really exhausting. So 'P' does most of the everyday cooking around these part but I really wanted to make something special for my nephews birthday party. 

I remember seeing a wonderful Rice Crispy free standing robots on a cooking program last year and it really stuck in my mine as a great make for a birthday boy.

As the robot was made from a quick to make fridge cake, I thought it would be a low energy and therefore doable make for me to attempt.  Perfect for the pacing plan I have to follow to manage my illness. So I had a look online and found the recipe 'here' this is in no way a healthy eating recipe, with it's half a block of butter, 4 Mars bars and three and a half bars of chocolate and golden syrup eek.

I figured that after the Tyre Tobogganing  and all the running around in the garden the mini's would have some calories to replenish and I really wanted to make a free standing robot.

So you make it like any other rice crispy cake,  melting the chocolate, Mars bars butter and golden syrup over a bain marie.

it takes a little while for the Mars bars to melt so keep stirring

Then mix in well with the Rice Crispy's

Until it looks like this, then put it into a baking tin and pressing down quite firmly before putting in the fridge to set. Then if you are me go and have a lay down for a few hours while it sets.

Four hours later back from my rest, I drew a template of my robot on a piece of paper the size of my cake tin, so that I knew it would fit when I went to cut out my robot. Then I just cut out the piece and put them on to the top of the cake and cut my robot out using a sharp knife.

Here he is all ready to be decorated.  At this point he was getting a bit melty and I needed another rest so I put him back into the fridge for a hour or so and had another rest (rest are optional in the recipe !!)

Then it was time to decorate my robot with sweets, sticking them on with melted chocolate, I used skittles smarties minstrel, tooty friuty's dolly mixture white chocolate button, mini marshmallow and little gold balls (keeping with the healthy eating theme NOT !!)  creating buttons, control panels, eyes and antenna. Working on each section at a time then returning them to the fridge to set.

I had a little trouble with the antenna as every time I tried to lay the head down in the fridge they dropped off so in the end some fridge rejigging was required so that I could put the robots head in standing upright.

and Ta-Dah my robot was complete.  

 As I already mention in my Busy Birthday Weekend post it's a shame that I wasn't well enough to assemble my robot on Sunday, so in the end I covered a wire cooling tray with foil and laid my robot onto it.  If I were well enough I would have built the robot using cocktail sticks to hold him together so he could stand, but never mind the children loved him, he's just a tired robot that needs a lie down like me.

The trouble is that when you are a chocolate robot  having a lie down on a birthday tea table surrounded my marauding mini pirates you might get eaten !!! All that was left were some spare parts.

I'd love to see a pic if anyone has a go at making one of these robots and get one to stand.

Clare xx