Celebrating #NationalCerealDay

Things have been so crazy for the past few weeks for me. There has been a lot going on with work and at the same time I’ve been doing my darnedest to stay social and meeting new folks! But, sometimes it is important to take some time to sit down with a bowl of cereal and enjoy an episode of Golden Girls every once in a while! You feel?

Well if you missed my latest Instagram, yesterday was #NationalCerealDay. I work at General Mills with cereal, so these past few weeks have been a storm of exciting and challenging new tasks/experiences! I wanted to get this post in yesterday (when it was actually the holiday), but I didn’t get a chance. As my mom says: “If you are gonna be late, you are gonna be late.”

To preface, my favorite cereal is Kix. This is, as I’ve heard, not the most popular opinion out there. Most people I know rush towards Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Honey Nut Cheerios, but I crave the subtle sweetness of these delectable little corn puffs.

Anyways, I started out my #NationalCerealDay celebrations with a bowl of my favorite cereal topped with frozen blueberries and sliced bananas. I love putting frozen blueberries in my cereal — they make the milk extra cold!

Throughout the rest of the day I was nibbling on a snack that I prepared the night before (again featuring my favorite cereal). It was a Chocolate Kix Toffee Bark (Warning: these are SO addicting). They are similar to the saltine cracker toffee that adorn Christmas cookie trays across the country. For the #NationalCerealDay festivities,  I used a recipe from SeriousEats that you can find here.

First you lay out your Kix on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil or parchment paper. Major Key Alert: I sprayed the pan with coconut oil spray, but you could use any spray to make sure your bark doesn’t stick to the foil forever. At that point, you can start building a caramel sauce out of butter, brown sugar, and vanilla extract.

You can then pour the caramel onto your Kix and begin to smooth it out with a spatula. Pop that into a 400 degree oven for about 5 minutes, and boy that caramel will continue to bubble and get even more delicious as it begins to really stick to the cereal.

Using oven mitts, take the sheet out of the oven and sprinkle on a bag of chocolate chips (I used Hershey’s Special Dark as they were on sale last week). Wait a few minutes, and the chocolate will melt and you can spread the chocolate over the caramel with a spatula. You won’t want to mix the layers too much (luckily, they stayed fairly separate for me).

When the chocolate cooled but was still sticky enough, I covered it with a few pinches of sea salt, chopped dark chocolate, and crushed Kix Cereal. You’ll then want to let the chocolate set in the fridge for an hour or so before you break it up into servings.

You won’t be able to stop munching on these treats. The crunch of the Kix-Caramel combo with the smooth sweetness of the dark chocolate is heavenly, but the salt really does it for me (surprise surprise, Jack LOVES salt).

If you had cute little bags, this would be an awesome little treat to give as gifts for any holiday (In this case #NationalCerealDay!!). In the comments: What is your favorite cereal? I’m a big Kix fan, but I applaud other thoughts!!