Is it granola or a sweet Chex Mix? I needed the answer, so I made a half-batch of the recipe on the back of H.E.B.’s copy-cat version of Honey Nut Chex, Honey Nut Squares.
The picture on the box looked like a cross between granola and cereal, but mine (and I made it twice) was more like a sweet Chex Mix. And what’s really neat is that it’s held together by your favorite flavor of jelly, so you can make it whatever flavor you want. I used orange marmalade, but since I had to make it twice, I discovered that swapping out a little of the marmalade for honey helped hold it together better and toned down the orange flavor. But the honey is not necessary.
Honey Nut Crunch Granola aka Sweet Chex Mix
2 tablespoons of your favorite (reasonable!) flavor of jelly (softened) or orange marmalade or 1 T. jelly and 1 T. honey
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 cup oats, I used old fashioned
2 tablespoons coconut
1/4 cup pecans, almonds or walnuts
1 cup Honey Nut Chex or H.E.B. Honey Nut Squares
Preheat oven to 325ºF. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or non-stick foil
Put the softened jelly or orange marmalade (and honey, if using) in a bowl. Add the vegetable oil, oats, coconut and nuts and stir well. Add the Honey Nut Chex/Squares and toss gently so that the cereal picks up some of the coating. It’s more important that the oats get lots of coating so they’re not too loose…unless you like them loose.
Spread mixture on the baking sheet and bake at 325 F for 20 minutes, stirring twice. At first I thought it wasn’t done and added an extra 5 minutes. It was burnt, so watch carefully at 20 minutes. Let cool completely. Break up a bit and eat.
Makes 2 cups or 4 servings
Adam, you’re a lucky guy if you can buy bacon marmalade. My husband came back from Seattle without Skillet’s Bacon Jam 🙁 , so I made my own with the NotQuiteNigella recipe. It was tasty, but needed more kick. Soon I’ll try the Chipotle Bacon version.
This might give me a good excuse to buy some bacon marmalade… ooo.. and maybe some corn nuts… :).
I like that there are no “crown cracking” ingredients-this looks easy to make! I’ll bet salted nuts would add an interesting twist-I’m addicted to sweet and salty!
I love sweets, carmel corn, cookies, whatever… But for our family Christmas this year there was a dish of a sweet mix similar to this one sitting with all the other goodies. There was also a dish of the regular salty Chex mix. Almost everyone, and that included me went for the salty spicy mix rather than the sweet. I guess we had enough sweets with all the cookies.
I love the idea of a favorite jelly flavored mix though. It’ll be fun to try this, maybe a strawberry for Valentine’s Day.