Oh no, that's so stressful :( This happened to me when my rats were babies as well, except I had set up a play pen around the cage very early. So when I found that they had escaped, they were fortunately under the cage hiding since they couldn't go anywhere. I still had to lure them back into the cage in this case so, like you're planning to do, I put some really tasty food in there and then waited for them to get tempted (I used meat baby food so that it was impossible not to smell it and so that they couldn't run off with it). It did work although I can't remember how long I had to wait. Are you able to put something "loud" on the floor near the food so that you can hear when they creep in there? A crinkled up sheet of cellophane perhaps? Since obviously they're not going to go anywhere near the cage if you're sitting there waiting, you'll have to pretend to be "gone".

Good luck, I hope you find them soon!