Here is a hill I will die on, and it's a small, sticky, beautiful hill: if you are making Rice Krispies treats with the big marshmallows, you are working too hard for no reason. A recent piece on the subject makes the case plainly, and it matches everything my own buttered spatula has taught me over the years. Mini marshmallows. Always mini.

Why does size matter so much when the thing melts anyway? Because melting is never even. The big marshmallows have a stubborn, chewy core that resists the butter longer than the outside admits to, so you keep stirring, and stirring, and by the time the center finally gives up, the exterior has cooked into a dense, taffy-ish paste. The treat comes out tough instead of airy. Then people complain that Rice Krispies treats are hard, and no, cara, you didn't fail. Your marshmallows did.

Minis melt fast and melt together, all at the same rate, which gives you that soft, pull-apart texture that made these bars a childhood religion in the first place. You also get better incorporation, meaning the melted marshmallow actually coats every flake of cereal instead of sitting in glossy clumps while dry pockets hide underneath. Dry pockets are the enemy. A Rice Krispies treat should never crunch like styrofoam in one corner and stretch like mozzarella in the other.

Low heat, and I mean genuinely low, is the other half of the deal. My grandmother never made these, they are not exactly Campanian cuisine, but her rule applies anyway: butter and sugar punish impatience. Melt the butter gently, add the minis in batches, and pull the pot off the heat while a few lumps still hold their shape. The carryover heat finishes the job without cooking the sugar into chewiness.

A few more things worth knowing. Salted butter, or unsalted with a real pinch of salt, because sweet without salt is just loud. And press the mixture into the pan with a buttered piece of parchment or your hands. Never pack it down like you're compacting landfill. Compression kills the air that makes these worth eating. You are building a fragile thing, not a brick.

None of this requires money or fancy equipment, same as anything worth cooking. A bag of minis, a knob of butter, a pot, patience. If you've been fighting the big ones all these years, switch once. You'll never go back.