Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Cereal Bars-why only have cereal for breakfast?
Everyone knows about rice krispie treats, right? A bag of marshmallows, a stick of butter, 5-6 cups rice krispies, yum! You can build stuff with them, like on top of cakes, and then frost it. That tower or dinosaur that you admire, it just might be snap, crackle and pop hiding under there.
Another cereal treat we love, and probably most know about, are the peanut butter corn flake Pralines. Sugar, corn syrup, peanut butter and corn flakes. Same idea as the rice krispies but peanut buttery.
I saw a post a few weeks back by Ann over at Sumptuous Spoonfuls for Special K Bars.
I love Special K. That’s my cereal, when I have it. The kids aren’t allowed to touch MY box of cereal. So I had to check it out. Basically the same recipe I use. But wait there’s more, she has chocolate and butterscotch chips on hers. Now why didn’t I think of that?
So I call the girls into the kitchen, We have to make this now! We use our recipe (it has more sugar) and as we’re melting the sugar and corn syrup, I see out of the corner of my eye… The dry roasted peanuts. That would give a touch of salt and extra crunch.
Now lets just take a quick second to review the nutritional value of these bars. Made with cereal-usually has at least 8 vitamins and minerals. Peanut butter has protein. Nuts-more protein.
I think I can get away with calling these a “healthy” snack! Probably not, but I tried!
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Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup corn syrup
- 1 cup peanut butter
- a total of seven cups of stuff-we used
- 6 cups cereal-Special K this time
- 1 cup dry roasted peanuts (you could also use M&Ms)
- 2 cup chocolate chips
- 1/4 cup butter
Instructions
- Place cereal in a large mixing bowl.
- On stove, bring sugar and corn syrup to a boil and remove from heat.
- Add peanut butter. Stir until blended then pour over cereal. Gently fold to coat. Add in peanuts and fold a few more times.
- Spread in a buttered 13 x 9 pan, let cool.
- Melt chips with the butter until melted and smooth. Spread over cereal bars. Let cool completely before cutting into bars.
Notes
Any flake cereal will work well with this recipe, Special K, Corn Flakes, Total, so use your favorite.
Recipe source ChocolateChocolateandmore.com
Special thanks to Mrs. Phyllis at church for turning us on to the Corn Flake Pralines years ago and to Ann at Sumptuous Spoonfuls for making us think “outside of the box.”
Want more tasty bars?
yummm I think I will have to do these for my coming road trip this weekend, thank you
Wowwwww.. looks really delicoius and tempting.. thanks for sharing 🙂
Indian Cuisine
I would definitely consider this a healthy snack. The hardest part for me would be “leave alone for a few hours to cool …”
@tammi, these travel well!
@Hari, these are tempting, I think hubby and I ate more than the kids!
@Sandra, just make sure a little stays in your bowl to snack on, that’s what we do, hehe
These are a staple in our household. Literally, it’s got its own food group. We had peanut butter to the chocolate chips for the topping instead of butter…and it’s so much creamier, smoother, absolutely delicious (especially because I like using milk chocolate chips). Be forewarned though that it doesn’t get completely hardened like just choc/butter. It’s so worth it though! 🙂
To make them healthier, what can you substitute the sugar and corn syrup for? They sound so good, but I can’t have either sugar or corn syrup. Thanks
I don’t know that there would be a good substitution for either, at least nothing I’ve tried. Sorry.
I have used honey in place of corn syrup. The sugar seems necessary to bind it.
The recipe calls for 7 cups of dry cereal but you show that you only used 6 cups, or did you take into account the 1 cup of peanuts as the last cup of the cereal??
I wonder how these would do made with peanut butter Cheerios? Might have to try it out!
Try using Rice Krispies instead of Special K, has a nice crunch, been making them that way for 50 some years… My Favorite…..