Sweet Treats - Smores and Holiday Puppy Chow

When it comes to making treats, I try to look for things that are both easy to create and pretty to look at. After all, everything I do is purely for the aesthetic. Today I’m going to show you how to make two different types of puppy chow, which are perfect for small individually packaged gifts or for small gatherings!

Smores Mix

Ingredients:

Golden Graham cereal

Chex Mix

Peanut butter

Powdered sugar

Mini marshmallows

Chocolate chips

Equipment:

2 Mixing Bowels

1 strainer (if available)

Optional mason jars or goodie bags for presentation

1. Take the Chex mix and pour it into a bowel

I usually do 2 cups, but it depends on how much you want to make!

If I'm only doing one or two mason jars, I actually pour the Chex Mix into the jar first and fill it to about a 3rd of the way to see how much I actually need (keep in mind that you'll have other ingredients in the mason jar later). Then I pour it back into the mixing bowl!

2. Mix the Chex Mix with the peanut butter

Some of it tends to break so be sure to stir carefully!

3. Next pour powdered sugar over the mix and stir again until every piece is covered in the sugar. I usually eyeball the amount of peanut butter and powdered sugar I use. I start small and add more until I feel like everything has been evenly covered.

4. Shake off excess powder.

If you have a strainer on hand, it helps to pour that mix into one and shake out the extra powder. If not, you can always scoop it into another bowel and try to gently shake off each spoonful before adding it to your new bowel. As you can see from my picture, I didn't do a great job at this, but I think puppy chow will always be a bit messy of a treat.

5. Presentation

Snack Bowel - start adding in the remaining ingredients and mix them all together.

Mason Jar - after you mix everything together in a bowl you can start pouring them into the jars. It can get a little messy so I normally use a spoon to transfer the puppy chow into the jar.

Row by Row - exactly as it sounds, place a layer of each ingredient before adding the next. Ex: a row of chocolate chips, a row of puppy chow, a row of marshmallows, a row of golden grahams, repeat.

Like I’ve said in a previous recipe, there are really no rules! This is what I’ve done, but you can edit the mix anyway you want to show off your style. Once the chow is in the mason jar, I like to tie some twine or a cute ribbon to add a little extra something!

Holiday Puppy Chow

If you want to show off a little holiday spirit then you can make this merry holiday puppy chow to impress your friends and Instagram followers!

Ingredients:

Chex Mix

Red and green M&Ms

Powdered sugar or cocoa powder

Peanut butter

Mini marshmallows

Mini pretzels

1. The first set of instructions are the same as the Smores recipe. Mix your Chex mix with peanut butter, then powdered sugar and try to shake off the excess powder. Then transfer the mix into a new, clean bowel.

2. Next mix your other ingredients into a large bowel.

3. Presentation. From here, you can either leave them in the bowel or start pouring them into a mason jar (you can also do the layered thing again)!

Goodie bags - What I did in the photo was place them into small goodie bags. This was for a Thanksgiving get-together last year at my job so I thought it would be cute to have them as an easy grab-n-go option for people as a snack or something to take home. I bought my bags off amazon and chose a winter theme with the snowflakes, but feel free to play with the presentation and create something you love!

As I said, this is an easy, quick, and creative treat that’s ideal for small gatherings or just as gifts!