Chocolate mint crunch bars

Baking is a year-round "sport" for me but there's an added layer of purpose and excitement around it when we start talking about holiday baking!  I must start thinking about Christmas cookies, and holiday baking in general, the minute the temps start dropping.  Peppermint things start popping up in the kitchen, and it's been happening already.  It's also no coincidence that chocolate and mint is one of my son's favorite combos.

A new and simple chocolate-mint idea popped up into our kitchen last week, and it was inspired by my teen.  We keep a candy dish near our door, with a mixture of small chocolates.  The other day, my son took a small Nestle Crunch, then followed it with an Andes Mint; he then started raving about how delicious the combination was!  It gave us all a good laugh but it got me thinking...

...I could easily make that combination happen for him!  So I went out shopping for some puffed cereal and this 3-ingredient chocolate mint crunch bar came to life.  

I literally chopped up a mix of semi-sweet chocolate and Andes Mint candies, melted it down, and stirred in puff cereal before setting it into a pan to set.  Using Andes Mint packs a strong minty punch and eliminates the possible issue of the melted chocolate seizing if you were to add peppermint extract to it instead.

This fun little happenstance project was a hit with the teen, who was tempted to write to Nestle requesting a mint version of their Crunch bar!  He was very pleasantly surprised when I presented him with his inspiration.  We can all vouch that a chocolate-mint crunch bar is a very delicious thing, and we're happy to make and eat our own homespun version of it for now.

Nutty cereal bars

I've been playing around with another snack bar recipe.  Somewhat surprisingly, the peanut butter granola bars were a fair hit with our little one and I wanted to try another variation to mix things up a little.  The result is this cereal bar made of puffed cereal, almonds, and sesame seeds. 

I think I might've pushed my luck a little too far with the nuts - the little guy was not a fan of these (it didn't help that he was in no mood to try something new when I presented them).  On the whole, I liked these - they're slightly chewy yet crunchy (from all those nuts) and just a tad sweet from some honey.  They do tend to crumble so it's a bit messy.  It helps to keep it in the fridge and the best part is you can store it there for about 3 weeks.

The original recipe uses sliced almonds and cashews and in retrospect, it would've been a better idea to mix the nuts as opposed to going with all almonds like I did.  I was trying to play it safe because while I like cashews, they can be a little too rich...plus, I know the little guy would not go for cashews at all.  So long story short, there's a lot of almonds in every bite.  I'm ok with that as a person who loves almonds but a little of this goes a long way.