Recipe: Brown Rice Crispy Treats

I spent this past weekend in a house with 12 adults and 10 kids.  Five of my best girlfriends from college and I were getting together for a weekend getaway with our families.  And it was awesome.  Better than awesome actually.  Filled with food, laughter, games and more, it was 3 days of pure fun.  It was also 3 days filled with feeding 10 kids ranging in age from 1-6 years old.  Which believe it or not, went much smoother than I imagined.  The kids all sat together for meals including turkey bolognese pasta, grilled cheese and homemade sliders with baked french fries. I brought these brown rice crispy treats wanting something somewhat healthy I knew both the adults and kids could snack on.  What I didn’t expect was that all of us adults would pretty much finish them on night 1.  They were just too good to save for the kiddos.  Lucky for Audrey I made an extra batch and she’s been able to enjoy them since we’ve been back.  Filled with brown rice cereal, almond butter, coconut oil, dark chocolate and agave nectar, they are about as healthy as most desserts can get.  Get creative with them and add your own variation – peanut or sun butter instead of almond, quinoa crisps instead of brown rice, honey or maple syrup instead of agave nectar, or get even crazier and add flax meal to the mix.  You won’t be disappointed.

Brown Rice Crispy Treats

12 months + up

Makes 24 squares

• 4 cups crispy brown rice cereal
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup all-natural almond butter
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil
• 1/4 cup agave nectar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 6 oz. dark chocolate chips

Lightly coat an 8×8 casserole or baking dish with with cooking spray.

Place cereal and salt in a mixing bowl.  Heat almond butter, coconut oil, agave nectar, vanilla and cinnamon on medium-low heat in a saucepan.  Stir until warm and thinned like syrup, but not boiling.  Pour the mixture over cereal and stir to coat evenly.  Transfer cereal mixture to pan. Press it down with wet fingers to even and smooth out the top.  Place in the fridge to chill for 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt the chocolate over a double boiler or in the microwave in 30 second increments. Once melted, remove the chilled treats from the fridge and pour the chocolate mixture over them, smoothing it evenly with a rubber spatula.  Return the pan to the fridge and cool until the chocolate has completely hardened, ideally a few hours. Remove from fridge and cut into squares.