Remember back to your childhood days where nothing satisfied your sweet tooth quite like a Rice Krispie Treat? Well, you can now relive those days and put them to shame with the incredibly tasty gourmet crisp rice treats being doled out by New York City’s Treat House. It all began back in 2011 when Chris and Jennifer Russell’s children were tasked to raise money for charity. With a background in the restaurant industry, Chris set to work on creating delicious, gooey treats for the kids to sell as part of a bake sale. Naturally, they sold like wildfire and from there, an idea was born to open up shop and bring gourmet rice krispie treats to the masses. Since opening a year and a half ago, Treat House has seen tremendous success — they have catered prestigious events, been featured in countless publications, and have even been on numerous TV shows, including Live with Kelly and Michael, The Today Show and more. We wanted a behind the scenes look into this one-of-a-kind venture and sat down with Chris and Jennifer to learn all about their outstanding treats.
Most people just cut up a roll of Nestlé Toll House cookies and call it a day. What made you decide to do rice krispie treats for this bake sale, and flavored ones at that?
Chris: Because we’re not like most people. The truth is it was a series of crazy coincidences. I’m a culinary person, I love to cook, I’ve cooked for years, [but] I’m not a baker. I’m a savory guy. Our kids had to raise money for a charity and instead of going to the grandparents and asking for money, we decided to do a bake sale. We decided to make rice krispie treats because, in theory, it’s easy. It was the night before the bake sale and the kids were watching TV and I was in the kitchen making rice krispie treats. I made the first batch and then thought ‘what the hell.’ I threw in some peppermint extract and green food coloring. We also played around with crumbling cookies on top. For the next batch I threw in some butterscotch extract, food coloring and added some sprinkles on top. The final one was dark cherry chocolate ganache. It was all just because. Just for fun.
Do you rotate flavors?
Jen: Yes. We have our standard 12 flavors and then we have seasonal flavors based on holidays. We do Valentine’s Day treats, Superbowl, Academy Award treats, etc. We also do custom treats with company logos.
How do you come up with new flavors?
Chris: Whatever hits us. A new flavor that we are working on is Blueberry Crumble Pie. We are using dehydrated blueberries and mixing in graham cracker and cinnamon and blueberry marshmallow. We are also going to introduce Chocolate Hazelnut.
Jen: We also do ice cream bars. We take our treats, do one layer, and then add vanilla ice cream, add another layer of treat, and then double dip them in chocolate. We have chocolate mint, chocolate raspberry, and we rotate flavors with that, too. We are probably going to get a little ice cream cart and start selling them outside.
How long does it take to make a batch, typically?
Chris: 24 hours. We make the bases and then we cover them with ganache and marshmallow and let them set — since there’s homemade marshmallow inside it takes a bit longer than store-bought marshmallow. Then we add the garnishes.
Do you have any plans on expanding or opening additional locations?
Chris: We’re thinking about it. I imagine in the next year we’ll be talking about opening additional locations.
What are your most popular flavors?
Jen: For the ice cream bars, probably cookies ‘n cream and the chocolate mint.
Chris: The treats, in the store, we have about six top flavors, but in online sales birthday cake is the most popular.
Jen: I think the biggest flavors in the store are the caramel sea salt — people really like the salty sweet thing — and chocolate peanut butter; it’s got crushed reese’s pieces in it. The coconut is a new flavor for us, we had it in the winter but it was so popular we’re keeping it around.
Chris: We might add some pineapple and rum compound to it [for the Spring].
Jen: Cookies ‘n cream is really popular, as well as s’mores.
Do you have any favorite holidays to create treats for?
Jen: We’ve had fun with all the holidays. It’s all about being creative and thinking of new ideas. We like to challenge ourselves.
Chris: The challenge is creating unique holiday treats and not just putting a garnish on top, but creating a flavor that somehow ties into the holiday.
In addition to their treats and ice cream bars, Treat House also sells their flavored marshmallows (perfect for hot chocolate), lollipop treats, and granola for early morning customers. The small treats are the perfect size — big enough to allow you get a good feel of the flavor, but also small enough to allow you to try multiple flavors at once without feeling like you’re getting a sugar overload.
Even heading to their Upper West Side location will send you straight back to your yesteryears. Walking into the front might have you thinking you’ve stepped in to a traditional bakery, but head to the back and you will find yourself inside a tree house, complete with tree trunk seats and swing.
The bottom line here is that you’re never too old to go back to your roots and if you haven’t tried one of these crispy treats yet, you shouldn’t wait another minute.
Treat House is located at 452 Amsterdam Avenue.
Twisted Talk: Have you tried any of the treats from Treat House? What’s your favorite flavor? Discuss below!
