Fruit and Cereal Snack Bars

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PREP TIME

15 min

TOTAL TIME

2 hrs 15 min

Makes

24 servings

Fruit and Cereal Snack Bars

Photo: Yvonne Duivenvoorden

Whip up a batch of these deceptively delicious sneaky snack bars and pop 'em into your kids' lunch boxes for a nutritious, sweet treat!

Ingredients

  • 4 cups whole-grain cereal O's
  • 4 cups whole-grain cereal flakes
  • 1 1/2 cups dried cranberries
  • 1 cup coarsely chopped dried apricots , (about 20)
  • 1/2 cup sweetened fancy flake coconut , (optional)
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 1 400-g pkg jumbo marshmallows , (about 45)

Instructions

  • Coat a 9 x 13 in (3 L) baking pan with cooking spray or line with parchment paper. In a very large bowl, mix both types of cereal with cranberries, apricots, and coconut, if using.
  • Melt butter in a large wide saucepan or Dutch oven set over medium-low heat. Add marshmallows and stir constantly, until melted and evenly combined, 6-10 minutes. (Prevent a sticky situation by lightly coating a wooden spoon with cooking spray or oil before stirring.)
  • Turn off heat, but leave saucepan on burner. Add cereal mixture and stir vigorously to combine. There’s a lot to mix, so dig deep. Turn mixture into pan and, using a spatula sprayed with cooking oil, smooth the surface and press down to pack. Cool until firm, at least 2 hours. Remove from pan and cut into squares.

Tip

Raid the bulk bin at your grocery store and add other goodies, such as chopped toasted almonds or walnuts (if there are no allergy concerns), green pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds, slivered dried figs, golden raisins, dried berries or chopped dried pineapple.

Nutrition (per square)

  • Calories
  • 152,
  • Protein
  • 1.8 g,
  • Carbohydrates
  • 28 g,
  • Fat
  • 2.5 g,

Originally published in the March 2010 issue. Photo by Yvonne Duivenvoorden. 

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