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Cheerios Cereal Bars with vanilla cream filing — Cheerios Cereal Bars with Vanilla Cream Filling

Cheerios Cereal Bars are my substitute for one of my favorite snacks – Honey Nut Cheerios Milk & Cereal Bars. The original bars are no longer available in our area, I’m not sure why. Thus, my mission was to create something to take its place.

I did run into a snag with this recipe but was able to recover nicely with a delicious end result.

Watch the video!

Cheerios Cereal Bars Recipe

Bars

1 cup peanut butter (creamy or crumchy)
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup corn syrup (Karo)

Vanilla Filling

1 stick butter
1 cup confectioners sugar
7 oz marshmallow cream
1 tsp vanilla flavoring

Making the Bars

I used crunchy peanut butter but you can use smooth or crunchy. Add in the honey and corn syrup. I used white Karo. The only time I use the dark Karo is when making a pecan pie.

Microwave the mixture for about two minutes. Then stir in the Cheerios. Make sure they are well covered.

Prepare two cookie sheets. Mine pans were 9.5″ x 13. Line them with parchment paper and also spray the sides with cooking spray. I think I sprayed a little on the parchment paper just to be safe.

Divide the cereal mixture between the two pans. Press it down firmly. I used waxed paper and then even rolled over it a bit with a rolling pin. Set those pans aside and make the cream filling.

Vanilla Cream Filling

Mix the confectioners sugar (or Swerve confectioners sugar substitute which is what I used) with the softened butter, marshmallow cream, and vanilla flavoring. Be sure to use softened butter and not melted. Mix until smooth and creamy

Spread the vanilla filling over one pan of the Cheerios, smoothing it out to the edges.

snack bars made from cheerios, peanut butter, honey and vanilla cream filling with marshmallow cream — Vanilla Cream Filling

Well…..

Here’s where my Cheerios Cereal Bars went sideways! I had planned to take the second pan of Cheerios and sandwich them on top of the vanilla filling. But the cheerios didn’t stick together!

In hindsight, I wonder if cooking the peanut butter, honey, and syrup mixture a little longer might have made a difference.

Anyway, I just sprinkled the Cheerios right on top of the vanilla filling and pressed them gently into the filling. Cover the pan and place it in the refrigerator.

At this point, I wasn’t sure if the bars would stay together at all, but once they had been refrigerated for a couple of hours, they cut up just fine.

Cut the Cheerios Cereal Bars into squares and serve! They were delicious and they held together okay to eat with your fingers.

cheerios cereal bars with a glass of milk — Cheerios Cereal Bar with Milk

And even though they still contained a good many calories, we did reduce the sugar a bit with the Serve confectioners sugar substitute.

I realized today that I have used this vanilla filling about three times in the last few months! But I love it! I seem to be looking for ways to use it. It would make such a good filling for a Ding Dong cake, or chocolate cupcakes, Hostess style, or just between some cookies. Tea cakes! Doing a blog post on tea cakes is on my list!

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