Starting from the time my kids had them as one of their very first finger foods, Trader Joe’s O’s have remained a household favorite. Between Chloe scarfing dry fistfuls of it every morning for breakfast and Kenya slurping it down with rice milk by the bowlful, we go through a lot of O’s each week. In an effort to make food exciting for kids, I’m always trying to take ingredients they love and feature them in recipes they’ll hopefully adore even more.
This is my healthy take on the cereal bars you can buy at the grocery, but I used “O” cereal and decided to mold them into a cookie shape instead of a bar. These aren’t exactly a tough sell no matter what shape you make them into, but I find going with cookies adds to the fun visual appeal. Not to mention I sometimes feel like I could serve my kids drywall for breakfast and simply by calling it a cookie would increase its chances of being consumed tenfold.
No matter whether you decide to make cookies, bars or balls, have fun making them and be careful, they’re totally addictive. “Oh” yeah!!
Cereal Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup nut butter (almond, peanut or sunflower)
- 1/2 cup rice syrup
- 4 cups O’s Cereal (you can use whatever “O”-type cereal you like: Cheerios, Trader Joe’s O’s, etc.)
Instructions
- Place the nut butter and rice syrup in a small saucepan over low to medium heat and warm for 2 minutes or until it becomes smooth and combined.
- Place the cereal in a bowl, pour the warm nut butter/rice syrup mixture into the bowl with the cereal and stir to combine.
- Shape into cookies (I used a mini ice cream scooper to scoop out each portion, but you could also use a tablespoon). You can also place the mixture into a 9 x 9 inch ungreased pan, pat down and then cut into bars. As the O’s mixture cools, it will harden.
The brown rice syrup is what holds everything together and is a replacement for corn syrup which you will find on other similar recipes, so it is a necessary ingredient!
What’s a good substitute for rice syrup?
Would love to make these but any ideas of what we can use instead of rice syrup? We try to stay away from all things rice because of the arsenic which is particularly high in brown rice syrup. Thanks!
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yes just double the water for the rice exmalpe 2 cups rice 4 cups of water arent rice cookers great i love them too .if you 3 cups rice 6 cups of water got the idea
These are great and super easy! I added about 1/2tsp coconut oil to brown rice syrup/almond butter mixture. Also added handful of choc chips and dash of cinnamon to bowl with O’s. Will make these again..and again… 🙂
These are insanely good. Go. Make them right now and then hide them for yourself!
How do you store them?
If he is pretty good at chewing solid foods then these should be okay. They aren’t chewy like rice krispy treats. They’re softer!
What age would y recommend? My son is 20 months. Will these be too chewy for him?
[…] you because I was reminded how good they were when I made them today. I first came across them on Weelicious {have you SEEN her site?! So many fun kid-friendly recipes}, and have made them over and over as a […]
I’m not sure if that would firm up quite the same as rice syrup, but it is definitely worth a try!
Could agave syrup be used in this recipe?
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[…] *Popcorn *Peanut Butter Crackers *”O”Cookies (these are so easy, and we LOVE them, plus they’re fairly […]