Chocolate Nut Butter Rice Crispy Treats

My oldest baby boy turned 8 over the weekend! His birthday kicks off the beginning of the birthday/holiday extravaganza over at our house where the rest of us will follow until the year comes to an end. He was super laid back about the party plans this year. He chose to invite 4 classmates to Chuck E Cheese, plus his grandma and great-grandma came to visit from Texas (my mom and grandma) so it was a fun weekend celebrating.

oops, forgot the mouth and fangs, but it’s still a cute bat!

In addition to the delicious chocolate cake I make every year for him (I use this recipe), I did a little treat-making earlier in the week.

I needed to come up with something to donate to the kid’s school for their fall fundraiser so I thought I’d make my fun Halloween Rice Crispy treats, but this time jazz them up with some delicious and nutritious organic Nuttzo nut butter! I basically had to hide the secret ingredient from my husband because he has claimed the crunchy Nuttzo as his own and would be highly upset knowing I used the rest of the jar, but I reallllly wanted to try a nut butter version of rice crispy treats.

I just used the original Rice Krispie treat recipe and added the Nuttzo nut butter to the melting marshmallows and also added some of the Nuttzo to the melted chocolate topping.

After the chocolate hardened I just cut them out with my bat shaped cookie cutter and used a little icing to “glue” on the cute eyes and draw the mouth and fangs (the eyes can be found in the cake decorating section at your local grocer or store such as Walmart or JoAnn’s). I felt like I boosted the nutrition of these treats a little by using the fabulous organic seven nut and seed butter and let me tell you they were the best rice crispy treats I’ve every had!

Keep in mind I used the crunchy nut butter with chunks of nuts and flax seeds so my chocolate topping isn’t perfectly smooth, but come on, it’s a Halloween bat. Do we really care? Well if they answer is yes, then use a smooth nut butter.

I love that just by cutting out the treats with Halloween shaped cookie cutters makes them look like you worked really hard. Keep in mind you will end up with more “scraps” this way, but they don’t exactly go to waste (they’ll go in your tummy!).

If you are looking get as many treats as possible, just cut them into squares instead and decorate them with Halloween sprinkles or draw a pumpkin on them or something. I got about 10 treats using my bat cutter and then I saved the other bits and pieces for us.

Who really raves about rice crispy treats? I mean they are so simple and recipe so universal- in fact it’s even plastered on the marshmallow bag, but by adding the nut butter and then the melted chocolate/nut butter topping, whoa, they were sooooo good.

Of course if you have kids or friends with nut allergies then skip the nut butter and just do regular rice crispy treats topped with plain melted chocolate.

Hope you get a chance to make these chocolate nut butter rice crispy treats- they’re fabulous!

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Chocolate Nut Butter Rice Crispy Treats

Ingredients

3 tablespoons butter
10 ounce bag of mini marshmallows
½ cup of nut butter such as Nuttzo (smooth or crunchy)
6 cups rice cereal (such as Rice Krispies)

For the topping

1½ cups mini chocolate chips
2 heaping tablespoons of nut butter such as Nuttzo (smooth or crunchy)
1 teaspoon coconut oil

Instructions

Melt butter, marshmallows and ½ cup nut butter in a large pot over medium low heat. Stir until melted. Once the mixture is smooth, stir in cereal immediately.
Pour mixture to a 9x13 pan lined with wax paper sprayed with cooking spray (make sure to use a large piece of wax paper that hangs over the dish so that you can pull out treats before cutting). Working quickly spread mixture into pan and pat down using a spoon or rubber spatula (coat spoon in cooking spray for less sticking).
Melt the chocolate chips, 2 tablespoons of nut butter and coconut oil in the microwave, stirring every 20-30 seconds until melted.
Pour chocolate over rice krispie treats, smoothing with the back of a spoon. Let sit until chocolate hardens. Once hardened, lift wax paper out of the tray which will make cutting treats into desired shapes much easier.

Notes

Make the treats ahead of time so that the chocolate has enough time to harden before you start cutting them into shapes. Placing the treats in the refrigerator will help harden the chocolate, but will also make the treats very difficult to cut so don't leave them in there very long.

**As a proud Nuttzo Ambassador, I get to share my coupon code with Nutritious Eats’ readers- you can get 15% off your order of Nuttzo by using the coupon code nutritiouseats-15 although right now there is a 30% off sale of Nuttzo through October 27th with the code Halloween! Go check it out at GoNuttzo.com!