Cheerios remind me of tea parties.

Tea parties when I was a kid consisted of cheerios and water. Rather extravagant wouldn’t you agree? Back-in-the-day there was only one kind of cheerio and it came in a giant yellow box. It finally dawned on me while in the cereal section that there are a TON of different kinds of cheerios now. I mean there’s apple-cinnamon, fruity, multi-grain and CHOCOLATE! I don’t mean to sound whiny *ahem General Mills* but why couldn’t you have sported these flavors when I was a kid?

Sugar cereals were completely banned from my childhood pantry… but I bet ya fifty bucks that if it had Cheerios on the front my Mom would have bought it! The fruity Cheerios would’ve easily replaced the leaves-your-breath-smelling-like-stinky-feet yellow box for sure. Only sayin.

To Make These Marshmallow Cereal Bars Set out:

11 ounces cheerios (I used multi-grain with oat clusters)

1/4 cup sliced almonds

2 tablespoons salted butter

pure vanilla extract

6 ounces mini-marshmallows

I’m using 11 ounces cheerios, the multi-grain kind because they have oat clusters that A regular here. As I’ve said before, the fruity Cheerios would be striking in this dish, maybe only omit the almonds.

Add 1/4 cup of almond into the cereal and toss together with you impeccably clean fingers.

Line a 13×9 pan with some parchment paper to keep the bars from sticking to the pan. No sprays needed, promise.

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a large pot. I twirled the pot to get the butter up along the sides so the marshmallow would stick less.

Add in the 6 ounces of mini-marshmallows. The regular size would work but it will take a lot longer to get those suckers to melt… and who has time for THAT?

Keep on stirring.

When the marshmallows are simply about completely melted add in 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.

If there are a few lumps it’s genuinely no bigs. Who would cry over a lump of marshmallow in their cereal bar? Uhhhh not this girl.

Dump in the cereal and almonds.

Mix it all around until the melty-marshmallow goodness is through-out.

Transfer it into the prepared 13 x 9 pan.

I quickly greased up my fingertips with some coconut oil and pressed the cereal mound into the pan. It takes all of two seconds. You could also use wax paper to do this.

Now simply sit and stare at it while it cools. Painful? yes. But completely worth it. When I’m making Rice Krispies Treats, I never EVER get it to this stage of the game. We eat it straight out of the pan while still warm.

This is my attempt and some pretty wrappers for the bars. Fail? Maybe. Thank you brown paper bags that I’ve had for 5 years and never seem to run out of.

The rest went into a storage container. A dependable afternoon snack or as a grown-up breakfast, now if there’s one perk to being a grown up then it’s being able to have marshmallow cereal bars for breakfast!