Great No-Bake Treat to Make with Kids

A yummy treat for the whole family!

My almost 6 year old daughter loves to help me cook and help me in the kitchen. A couple weeks ago, she brought home a kids cookbook from school. It only had a few recipes in the book and only a couple that she was interested in trying out. One struck me as a particularly good sounding one and as something we would all enjoy. Snack bars.

Snacks are the bane of my existence. If I had a dime for every time I heard “Can I have a snack?” My bank account would rival Oprah’s. I thought these No-Bake Energy Bars sounded like something we would all like, would be fun for us to make and something the kids could get themselves.

Turns out, I was right! Below is our version of the bars that we made. Furhter down are the other/original recipe ingredients, but as with almost every single recipe I use, I change things up and make it my own.

No Bake Energy Snack Bars

1 cup chocolate chips

1 ½ cups rolled oats

2 cups Rice Krispies

½ cup raisins

½ cup peanuts – slightly chopped

¾ cup peanut butter

¾ cup brown sugar

¾ cup maple syrup

In a large bowl, mix the chocolate chips, oats, Rice Krispies, raisins & peanuts together and set aside.

In a sauce pan, mix peanut butter, brown sugar & maple syrup. Heat until the sugar is melted.

Pour melted mixture into large bowl and mix together until everything is coated (the chocolate chips will melt and help to hold everything together)

Press mixture into a greased jellyroll pan and refrigerate for 3 hours. Cut up and enjoy!

The original recipe called for coconut instead of raisins, almonds or walnuts instead of chopped peanuts, and an additional ½ cup of sunflower seeds. We used the ingredients we did because we were out of coconut & sunflower seeds and my daughter likes peanuts more than almonds or walnuts.

My daughter loved making this. She was able to measure, pour & mix the ingredients and stirred the cooking mixture. She loved mixing it all together and seeing the chocolate melt, but her favorite part was pressing it all into the jellyroll pan and then once done, licking the remnants off her hands. Eating the finished product was great!

This was a great recipe to make with kids – easy, fast and tasty! This is one we will make over and over again as all four of us in the house are enjoying them. And it can be made with just about whatever you want to add in there.

Try it & enjoy!