Pumpkin Spice Puppy Chow

You know what Puppy Chow is, right? It’s that wonderful concoction made of Chex cereal, chocolate, powdered sugar and peanut butter. Whoops! Can’t make that around here. Often times I’m so focused on my son’s egg allergy because it has much more of an impact on my baking life. Yes, it’s all about me. 🙂 Hopefully, you know I’m kidding. Anyway, I don’t care so much about the things I miss out on when it comes to keeping peanuts and peanut butter out of the foods we eat. Actually, we do have peanut butter in the house. His allergy isn’t that severe, thankfully.

While I was searching for fall desserts, I came across a recipe for pumpkin spice puppy chow on www.sallysbakingaddiction.com. This is my version of that recipe. I toned down the spices a bit and I also increased the amount of powdered sugar. Look for a printable version of my recipe at the bottom of this page.

Here’s what you need:
8 cups Rice Chex cereal
1 12 oz. bag orange candy melts
2 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon, divided
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1 ½ cups powdered sugar
1 ½ cups mellowcreme pumpkins

Pour the cereal into a large mixing bowl.

Place the candy melts in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 40 seconds on high. Stir the candy melts and then microwave for another 20 seconds. Stir again. Continue microwaving in 20 second chunks and stirring until the candy is completely melted.

Add 2 teaspoons of the cinnamon, the nutmeg, cloves, and allspice to the melted candy and stir to combine.

Add the melted candy mixture to the cereal and stir gently to combine to avoid crushing the cereal. Set aside.

Pour the powdered sugar into a resealable plastic bag. Add 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.

Spoon the cereal into the bag, seal it, and toss gently until all the cereal is coated with powdered sugar.

Pour the mixture into a clean bowl. Add the pumpkins and toss gently to combine.

Because I am planning on taking this to church tomorrow I spooned about a half cup of the mixture into snack size resealable bags.

As I was doing this, I realized that I wanted to make sure each bag got a couple of pumpkins. In hindsight, it would have been better to leave the pumpkins out of the mixture, spoon a 1/2 cup of puppy chow into each bag and then add a couple of pumpkins afterward.

This recipe is a delightful alternative to the classic puppy chow. And, not only is it peanut-free, it’s egg-free too! Enjoy!

Here’s the printable version: Pumpkin Spice Puppy Chow