LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The candles may now be lit—all 75 of them! The winner of the NESTLÉ® CRUNCH® 75th Birthday Showdown is the Nestlé Crunch Birthday Bar from Sweet Mandy B’s in Chicago.
The Nestlé Crunch 75th Birthday Showdown recently challenged 15 of the country’s most prestigious bakeries and top pastry chefs to unleash their creative talents to stir up the ultimate Nestlé Crunch-inspired birthday treat.
The contest asked fans of Nestlé Crunch and the bakeries to visit Facebook.com/NestléCrunch during a four-week span to view all of the participating bakeries’ Nestlé Crunch 75th Birthday treats, recipes and baking inspirations. Voters also had the chance to instantly win a Nestlé Crunch bar. The bakeries with the top three votes were placed in a bakeoff where the Nestlé Crunch culinary team and all-star baker and celebrity chef Carla Hall determined the grand prize winner. Hall is best known to television viewers as a co-host on ABC's lifestyle series "The Chew" and is owner of her own artisan cookie company, Alchemy by Carla Hall.
“Sweet Mandy B’s was so excited to be a part of the Nestlé Crunch 75th Birthday Showdown! As a lifelong fan of Crunch bars, I was truly thrilled to take on this challenge. I love the crunchy texture within the milk chocolate and crisped rice bar, so I wanted to reflect that same texture within our dessert. That’s why we created the Nestlé Crunch Birthday Bar – a crisped rice treat topped with a layer of peanut butter and chopped Nestlé Crunch bars, topped off with a dark chocolate layer and Nestlé Crunch’s Buncha Crunch. It’s truly a triple threat!” shared winning baker Sherrie Tan of Sweet Mandy B’s. (See below for recipe.)
Sweet Mandy B’s will receive the grand prize honor of having created the official Nestlé Crunch 75th Birthday Showdown treat, as well as one year’s supply of Nestlé Crunch bars for their bakery. The other two finalists were Sweet E’s Bake Shop from Los Angeles and Lutz Bakery from Chicago (find all of the contest recipes online at Facebook.com/NestléCrunch).
“We know that many of our fans use Nestlé Crunch to make fun and delicious treats at home, but we wanted to see just how far culinary experts could push the limits of their Crunch creativity,” said spokesperson Tricia Bowles of Nestlé USA Confections & Snacks. She added, “We were all extremely impressed!”
The all-American milk chocolate bar was baked into cupcakes, cookies, brownies, ice cream sandwiches, layer cakes and pie—even a cake push pop—stirred into frosting and filling, and stacked and sprinkled atop the tempting chocolate creations. During the contest, fans living near the participating bakeries were encouraged to visit the sweet shops to sample the Crunch birthday treat entries.
The participating bakeries included:
- Cakeology, Boston
- Casey’s Cupcakes, Orange County, Calif.
- Coolhaus, Los Angeles
- Crumbs Bake Shop, Los Angeles and New York (and available nationwide)
- Cupcake and Cookie, Los Angeles
- Dia Doce, Philadelphia
- Frosted Bakery, Tomball, Texas
- Kickass Cupcakes, Boston
- Lutz Bakery, Chicago
- Molly's Cupcakes, Chicago
- Sift Cupcake + Dessert Bar, San Francisco
- Society Bakery, Dallas
- Sweet E’s Bake Shop, Los Angeles
- Sweet Mandy B’s, Chicago
- Three Brothers Bakery, Houston
Sweet Mandy B’s Nestlé Crunch Birthday Bar Recipe
Rice Cereal Layer
3 cups crisped rice cereal
1/3
cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4
cup butter
Generously grease an 8x8x2 square baking pan with baking spray. Set aside.
In a medium-sized saucepan, bring the corn syrup, sugar and salt to a boil. Turn the heat off and add in the butter. Immediately stir in crisped rice cereal. Press into the prepared pan. Freeze for 10 minutes or until mixture is set.
Nestlé® Crunch® Peanut
Butter Layer
6 oz Nestlé® Crunch® bars,
chopped
1 cup creamy peanut butter
In a double boiler, melt together Nestlé® Crunch® pieces and creamy peanut butter until smooth. Spread over cooled rice cereal crust. Freeze for 20 minutes or until set.
Nestlé® Crunch® Buncha
Crunch® Topping
5
oz Nestlé® Toll House® Semisweet Chocolate Chunks
1/4 cup
butter
1 package (3.2 oz) Nestlé® Crunch®
Buncha Crunch®
In a double boiler, melt together Nestlé® Toll House® Semisweet Chocolate Chunks and butter until smooth. Spread over the top of the Nestlé® Crunch® Peanut Butter layer. Sprinkle Nestlé® Crunch® Buncha Crunch® all over. Freeze for another 10 minutes before slicing into four large pieces.
About the History of Nestlé Crunch
Nestlé Crunch was invented in Fulton, New York, in 1938, and originally sold for five cents as “Nestlé’s Crunch” milk chocolate bar with crisped rice. In the 1950s, the bar sold for 10 cents. In the 1980s, Nestlé Crunch set the record for the world’s biggest chocolate bar with a 7,000-lb. Nestlé Crunch candy bar. In 2012, Nestlé Crunch was the first candy bar to partner with Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. in reinventing the iconic Girl Scout Cookie into a delicious new treat known as the Nestlé Crunch Girl Scout Candy Bar. Today, as Nestlé Crunch celebrates its 75th birthday, fans around the world still enjoy the creamy milk chocolate bar with crisped rice as a sweet treat on its own, or as an ingredient or topping in favorite desserts.
About Nestlé USA
Named one of “The World’s Most Admired Food Companies” in Fortune magazine for 15 consecutive years, Nestlé provides quality brands and products that bring flavor to life every day. From nutritious meals with LEAN CUISINE® to baking traditions with NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE®, Nestlé USA makes delicious, convenient, and nutritious food and beverage products that make good living possible. That’s what “Nestlé. Good Food, Good Life” is all about. Nestlé USA, with 2012 sales of $10 billion, is part of Nestlé S.A. in Vevey, Switzerland — the world’s largest food company with a commitment to Nutrition, Health & Wellness — with 2012 sales of $98 billion. For product news and information, visit Nestléusa.com or Facebook.com/NestléUSA.
