Are you craving a sweet and simple Christmas treat that's perfect for gifting (or, let's be honest, devouring yourself)? Make Christmas Puppy Chow, also known as Muddy Buddie. This festive snack mix is filled with red and green Christmas M&M's, cute Christmas icing decorations, and holiday malt balls.
Can you believe I had never made Puppy Chow until this week? Some friends stopped by to spend a day making delicious treats including Chocolate Buckeyes, White Chocolate Snowman Pretzels, Christmas Oreos (tutorial coming soon), Chocolate Bark, and a variety of White Chocolate Popcorn.
One friend asked to make some Muddy Buddies. She knew I couldn't just make plain chocolate peanut butter-coated cereal dusted with powdered sugar. I had to make this yummy snack festive for Christmas too.
We added red and green Christmas M&M's (plain and peanut), some red, white, and green candy-coated malted milk balls, and some cute royal icing Santas, reindeer, snowmen, and elves.
Our Christmas snack mix looked so festive and fun that we couldn't resist packaging it in Mason jars to give as gifts.
I know our friends and families will love this cute and tasty holiday treat. I hope you do too.
Let's make some Christmas puppy chow mix.
Ingredients
- Rice Chex Cereal - You can use corn Chex if you like or even Crispix (a combination of rice and corn cereal.
- chocolate chips - I used Hershey's Special Dark. They are my favorite chocolate chips.
- butter - To balance out the sweetness, I chose to use Kerrygold Salted Butter but you can use unsalted if that is what you have on hand.
- peanut butter - Use your favorite peanut butter. I choose Jif.
- vanilla - Use pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste to round out the flavor of the treats.
- powdered sugar - I suggest you sift the powdered sugar before coating the cereal so you don't have lumps.
- Christmas Candies - we used red and green Christmas M&M's, both plain and peanut, and red, white, and green Christmas malted milk balls.
- Christmas icing decorations - These cute sugar decorations turned an ordinary bowl of puppy chow into the most adorable bowl of Christmas puppy chow.
Supplies
- extra-large mixing bowl
- silicone spatula or large spoon
- microwave-safe measuring cup with a spout or a bowl
- 2 gallon or jumbo-size zip-top bag
- baking sheet lined with parchment or wax paper
Instructions
Combine ¼ cup salted butter, ½ cup creamy peanut butter, and 1 cup of chocolate chips in a microwave-safe measuring cup or bowl.
Heat on high power for 30-second increments stirring after each until melted. Then, stir in 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract.
Pour 9 cups of Rice Chex Cereal into a large mixing bowl. Pour the melted chocolate peanut butter mixture over the top.
Toss the melted chocolate mixture with the Rice Chex Cereal until well blended.
Sift 1 ½ cups of powdered sugar and pour about ½ of it into a jumbo zip-top bag. Add about ½ of the cereal and shake the bag to coat that cereal.
Add the remaining cereal and powdered sugar. Seal the bag. Then shake until all of the cereal is well coated with powdered sugar.
The chocolate will be pretty soft at this point but it all should be coated in powdered sugar.
Pour it out onto a parchment or wax paper-lined baking sheet and let it cool for 30 minutes.
You can sprinkle on the candies and then scoop the snack mix into bowls, bags, boxes, tins, or jars.
Or you can pile it onto a serving platter and add the candies as you layer the snack mix onto the tray.
When we packaged our Christmas Muddy Buddies in mason jars, we layered in some cereal and candy and then placed an icing decoration (a snowman) on that cereal up against the front of the jar. We held it in place using a long lollipop stick and layered in more cereal. Then, added more icing decorations and more puppy chow.
I piled the snack mix high up over the rim of the jar to take a fun picture, but only filled the jars to the top and closed them with a lid to finish off our Christmas gifts.
Variations
You can use Christmas Sixlets instead of M&M's, and add nuts or pretzels to the snack mix if you like.
Swap out any other nut butter for the peanut butter or use Nutella, Biscoff Cookie Butter, or any other spread to change up the flavor.
Related Recipes
If you are looking for more Christmas snack recipes, be sure to check these out.
The candy Christmas lights, pictured above, would look cute in the muddy buddies too. They are made using Almond M&M's.
Recipe
Chocolate and peanut butter-coated Rice Chex is dusted with powdered sugar and served with Christmas M&M's, malt balls, and icing decorations.
- 9 cups Rice Chex Cereal
- ¼ cup salted butter
- ½ cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 ½ cups powdered sugar, sifted
- 1 cup milk chocolate Christmas M&M's
- 1 cup peanut Christmas M&M's
- ½ cup Christmas Malted Milk Balls
- 18 royal icing Christmas decorations
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Pour the Chex Mix into a large mixing bowl and set aside.
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Combine the butter, peanut butter, and chocolate chips in a microwave-safe measuring cup or bowl. Heat on high power for 30-second bursts of power, stirring after each until melted. This should take 1 to 1 ½ minutes.
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Stir in the vanilla extract.
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Pour the chocolate peanut butter mixture over the cereal and toss to coat.
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Sprinkle about ½ of the powdered sugar into a jumbo zip-top bag and add about half of the cereal. Shake the bag to coat the cereal.
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Add the remaining powdered sugar and cereal and shake until the cereal is well coated with powdered sugar.
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Pour the cereal out onto a parchment paper or wax paper-lined baking sheet.
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Let the chocolate-coated cereal sit for about 30 minutes in order for the chocolate to cool.
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Sprinkle on the M&M's and malted milk balls.
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Spoon the snack mix into a serving bowl, onto a platter, or package in a box, bag, tin, or jar. Add the royal icing decorations.
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Serve and enjoy or give as a gift.
Store the snack mix in an airtight container at room temperature for up to two weeks. If you store it in a metal cookie tin, it may stay fresh for up to a month.
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