No Bake Cereal Bars

I wasn't so sure about these bars. I wanted something I could make ahead of time for our annual Thanksgiving breakfast (I know, it's been a while since I made this recipe) instead of having to get up at the crack of dawn to have it ready by 9am. Anyway, I decided on this. I felt like this might be a bland recipe since there aren't that many ingredients. Boy was I wrong. I mean, the overwhelming flavor is peanut butter, but that's not bad. At least not to me. Short version, this was a really good, simple to make, recipe and I'd totally make it again.

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups corn syrup
• 1 jar (40 oz) chunky peanut butter
• 6 cups Cheerios cereal
• 6 cups Chex rice cereal

In a large saucepan, cook and stir sugar and corn syrup until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat. Add peanut butter; mix well. Stir in cereals. Spread quickly into two lightly greased 15 x 10 x 1 inch pans. Cut into bars while still warm. 

NOTES: I left the original instructions as they are written: cut into bars while still warm. However, when we spread the mixture on the pan, it was still very moldable and probably would not have held its form, had we cut it right away. We let the bars sit for a bit on the tray to cool, maybe 15-30 minutes, and then cut it into bars. It was still pretty sticky at that point, but hardened enough within an hour to make removing the bars from the pan doable. 

We also only spread our bars into one cookie sheet instead of two. The effect was thicker and fewer bars, but they were still very good and easily eaten. 

As I was writing this I realize how you could tweak this recipe and maybe make it even better. I was at the store the other day and they now have chocolate Chex cereal. You could totally substitute out the regular Chex for the chocolate and this becomes chocolate peanut butter cereal bars. You could even add mini chocolate chips if you want to cut the peanut butter taste a bit. 

Serves 10 dozen

Total Time: 20 minutes

Recipe from Taste of Home