Weird question: how do you crisp rice?

[beacooker]

I have no real reason for asking this question, other than curiosity:

A few us are sitting around at work, and one of the guys was looking at a Krackel bar from a bag of Hershey's miniatures. The label says 'crisped rice in milk chocolate'. Anyone know how they crisp the rice? Do they just toast it, and eventually it kind of 'pops'?? And is it a special kind of rice?

As the cooking maven of my office, my reputation is on the line here! ;)

[funnybone]

You made me curious, so I found the following from this link

http://www.kellogg.com.au/04/02/0402df.asp


Snap! ® Crackle! ® KABOOM!

Did you know that every Kellogg's® Rice Bubble® has survived over 1 million explosions?

That's what has to happen inside every grain to turn polished rice into puffed rice, which is the basis of Kellogg's famous snap-crackling Rice Bubbles, the world's favourite talking cereal.

An American biochemist discovered how to puff rice in 1902, when he stuffed rice into an old cannon, a relic from the Spanish-American war.

Today puffed rice is made in a machine, which uses tremendous steam pressure to produce a similar result. Over 1 million explosions occur within each tiny grain of rice!

No wonder the cereal is still talking!


Since the came from an Aussie/NZ site, I am sure they are referring to Rice Krispies as Rice Bubbles

[beejayw1]

Wow! (and thanks for the chuckle!)

I remember many years one of the big cereal makers (Quaker, as I recall) had a line of puffed rice cereals (not quite the same as Rice Krispies), and they had the end theme from the Overture of 1818 with the words:

It is the cereal that's shot from guns!
So delicious 'cause it's shot from guns!

I thought they were just being silly, but I see I'm wrong.

Anyone for a Nestle's Crunch bar??

[beacooker]

Thank you, funnybone! I checked the Kellogg's US site, but didn't check other country's sites. My co-workers and I very much enjoyed the fact that it was first made in a cannon. Thats hilarious that Quaker used that fact in their ads. Although, without knowing the obscure fact that it was invented in a cannon, that theme song sure doesn't make sense!

Now I get to retain my status as cooking queen. The best part of that status is that every once in a while, when someone tells me they have a question for me, instead of being some boring work-related question, I get something fun like: 'I have a pound of chicken breasts I want to cook for company tonight - how should I cook them?' Questions like that make my day!

[JHolcomb]

Oh gosh, Diana, that is the funniest, most obscure jingle I've ever heard. I'm laughing so hard my husband thinks I'm insane. Imagine the ad wizard that came up with that one!

[Mandy]

This reminded me of something my mom used to do.

When I was a kid my mom made a recipe (I couldn't tell you what it was) that required rice to be toasted in an iron skillet, and as it would toast it would pop, kinda like popcorn. She would always do more than the recipe called for so that we could eat it. I'm going to have to ask her what that was all about. All I remember is waiting by the stove watching as my rice popped. :D