Curious! What are people's opinions on taste, manageability, etc.? I'm going to be incorporating a few RKT pieces in the cake I'm doing... so I'd like to get a consensus on what is generally used.

Also, would the texture be smoother if the RKT is somewhat 'crushed' IE air pockets taken out by sort of compacting the RKT?

I've never used RKT for a cake, but i would imagine homemade ones would be more pliable and easier to work wtih than store bought. Plus, the flavor would be fresher. The storebought ones taste manufactured and artificial to me. I never really liked them.

Homemade if I'm eating them. Pre-Packaged for sculpting use and don't have time to make a batch.

It depends on what I'm doing with them.

I did a Mini-Cooper cake a few weeks ago and made the car out of rkt. Since it was going to be sculpted and covered in fondant I wanted it as compact and hard as I could get it. So I made homemade and boiled the marshmallows for several minutes (they turned kind of a brownish hue) so they would cool very hard and I could really mush them together so it wouldn't be too bumpy and I could carve it.

But then realized that I was going to have to lift the car off the cake by an inch or two - ran out to the pantry and grabbed a treat, covered it with the same fondant as the cake - and voila - instant pedestal!

Since I don't eat rice krispies (only in RKT), I use the store bought. I compact them as tight as possible and then I warn whoever gets the cake that it is RKT, but compacted down, so they may not want to eat that part of the cake and save their teeth!

I have only used rice krispie treats in a cake once and I used the store bought ones and compacted them together and covered it with fondant. I thought it was pretty easy but have never used homemade so cant really compare which ones are easier to work with for sculpting. HTH

I use store bought because I'm lazy to make things.

store brought

If you make your own you can leave out the butter which will make the RKT's stiffer when you get your hape molded. It takes a few minutes to make and is cheaper, so i make mine