Cooking with Kids: 3 Ingredient, No Bake Cereal Bars for Peanut Butter and Honey Lovers

Crunchy, chewy, nutty! The whole family will love these super easy cereal bars. Whip them up in minutes with three ingredients you probably have in your pantry right now. 

Cooking with Amelia

You might remember Amelia from our homemade gluten free playdough cooking day.

She has sure grown up since then. She still loves princesses and the colour purple, but she now also loves playing hockey, skiing, and reading Harry Potter and any other chapter books she can get her hands on. And she loves messing around in the kitchen.

Amelia and her mom (my cousin) came to visit us for a few days, and we had fun times in the kitchen together. We cooked up a bunch of recipes and this was one of our favourites - easy no bake cereal bars that fulfilled all our peanut butter and honey cravings.

I'm not the only one that has peanut butter and honey cravings, am I?

My nostalgia for this flavour combination stems from childhood - crackers spread with peanut butter and topped with a smear of honey were a staple sweet snack in our household, one of the few mom allowed. Later, as a university student and then working as a teacher, I often lunched on rice cakes spread with peanut butter and honey; an easy, throw-together-at-the-last-minute lunch on rushed days. And I still love to satisfy a sweet craving like that nowadays. This simple peanut butter & honey combination doesn't seem to go out of style.

No bake cereal bars are a great project to make with kids (and licking the bowl is an important part of the job). Young ones will need help with the stovetop part of the recipe. For these easy bars you just cook up some peanut butter and honey, stir it together with a heap of cereal (kinda like our Rickety Uncles treats) and pop it into a pan. Or you can have fun and fill a batch of mini muffin tins for little individual snacks. Amelia topped ours with a sprinkle of colourful candy-coated sunflower seeds.

Yes, they are a sweet treat. But life's short. Sometimes we need sweets.

Tell me . . .  are you a peanut butter & honey lover, too?

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3 Ingredient, No-Bake Cereal Bars

Margaret Bose Johnson

Crunchy, chewy, nutty! Everyone loves these no bake cereal bars. Whip 'em up in minutes with 3 simple pantry ingredients!

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cooling Time 1 hour hr

Total Time 1 hour hr 10 minutes mins

Course Baking, Bars & Squares

Cuisine American, Canadian

Servings 16 squares

Ingredients

 

• ▢ 3 cups (85gms) O-shaped oat breakfast cereal like Cheerios or a certified gluten-free substitute
• ▢ ½ cup (125gms) peanut butter
• ▢ ½ cup (170gms) honey
• ▢ optional: ½ cup roasted peanuts

Instructions

 

• Prepare an 8-inch (20cm) square baking pan by lining it with parchment paper. Crease the paper to fit neatly into the corners. Or alternately, place mini-sized cupcake liners into 24 wells of a mini muffin tin.
• Measure out the cereal into a bowl. Add the peanuts, if you are using them. Set aside.
• Combine the peanut butter and honey in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, then reduce the heat slightly and continue to cook for one minute, stirring constantly, as it can burn easily.
• Pour the coating over the cereal, scraping the saucepan clean with a silicone spatula. Use a wooden spoon or spatula to stir it, making sure all the cereal is coated.
• Pour the hot sticky cereal into the prepared pan and pat it down with the back of a large spoon so the top is smooth. Or, use two teaspoons to fill the wells of the mini muffin tins, heaping the cereal up and pressing it into the liners.
• Chill the cereal bars or snack minis for at least one hour before cutting.
• Lift the whole slab of cereal bar, with the parchment paper, out onto a cutting board. Cut into 16 squares with a sharp knife.
• Makes 16 squares or 24 mini muffin bites.

Notes

Even though Cheerios brand cereal doesn't contain any wheat ingredients and is labeled 'Gluten Free', some people with celiac disease have problems with it. So if you have celiac disease, are extremely sensitive to gluten, or if you know you can't tolerate it; use a certified gluten-free, O-shaped oat cereal instead.

Nut free: many schools don't allow peanut or nut products. I've tried this recipe with No Nuts brand toasted soy butter, which tastes very much like peanut butter, and it turns out just as deliciously. If you are making the recipe nut-free and wish to add nuts, replace the peanuts with toasted sunflower or pumpkin seeds.

Vegan: golden syrup (like Rogers Syrup) or brown rice syrup, instead of honey, work equally well in this recipe.

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Guten Appetit!

For more fun cooking projects to make with kids, see the ‘Cooking With Kids’ series here.

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