Valentine's Puppy Chow

This puppy chow is going to be... wait for it... legendary!

I found this recipe from Life, Love, & Sugar for strawberries & cream puppy chow and decided to try it out for our Valentine's Day MOPS meeting.  To say it was a hit was an understatement!  WOW, did I ever get compliments on this stuff.  My kids were staking out leftovers even before I left the house (luckily they were not disappointed!).

The recipe really is quite simple:

Strawberries and Cream Puppy Chow

5 oz white chocolate or white vanilla candy melts
5 oz red candy melts (Found in craft stores like Michaels and Hobby Lobby)
5 cups rice chex cereal, divided in 2 parts
1/2 cup strawberry cake mix
1/2 cup powdered sugar
M&Ms

1. Put 2 1/2 cups rice chex cereal into a medium sized bowl.
2. Slowly melt white chocolate in the microwave, stopping it every 30 seconds or so to make sure it doesn’t burn.
3. Add melted white chocolate to chex cereal and lightly stir to coat evenly. Be careful to not break the chex cereal too much.
4. Add the powdered sugar to the white chocolate covered chex cereal and lightly stir to coat evenly with powdered sugar. You could add the chex cereal and powdered sugar to a ziplock bag, then shake, but save yourself the bag.
5. Repeat the same process with the red candy melts and strawberry cake mix (instead of the powdered sugar).
6. Allow to dry completely and then combine the two kinds of puppy chow together and add M&Ms.

Enjoy!

I will say that I very rarely consume food coloring, so this had a bit of a twangy aftertaste to me (I think it was from the cake mix), but nobody else seemed to mind in the slightest!  I am thinking I might even play around with this general recipe to make it fit other holidays.  Try it for dessert tonight, or, try it next week; everyone will love you so much for making this, they won't really care if Valentine's Day is long gone!