Crispy Squares Aren’t Just for Kids Anymore

Remember your first recipe? Was it wiggly gelatin with a can of fruit cocktail dumped in? Popcorn balls enhanced by food coloring?

For many of us, it was sticky squares made with crispy cereals or fried wonton noodles.

Mom let us stir the melted marshmallows or chocolate, butter the baking pan and carefully mix in the crunchies. Then we experimented with the peanut butter version and discovered the real perk of being a junior chef.

Well, don’t feel deflated if that’s still the only edible you can whip up, because Michelle Bracken, the pastry chef at Zov’s Bistro in Tustin, has promoted the cereal sweet from grade-school bake sale to Cordon Bleu.

A layer of peanut butter and cornflake crust provides a textured base for smooth-as-silk white chocolate mousse. The dessert is crowned with a white chocolate curl that sticks out like a cowlick and fresh fruit--a few mandarin orange slices and a small cluster of fresh red berries.

One bite and you’ll send your Easy-Bake oven to the garage sale. Your kiddie baking days are over.

* White chocolate mousse in a peanut butter crunch crust--942 calories/80 grams of fat. $6.50 at Zov’s Bistro, 17440 E. 17th St., Tustin. (714) 838-8855.

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Got guilt? Send your ideas about treats you’d like to see featured in this space to occalendar@latimes.com.