Stevia-Sweetened Puppy Chow Recipe

         As most of you who follow my blog know, I have vowed to go at least a year without sugar, but with my sweet tooth, that pledge is so hard to keep. Thank God for the stevia plant. That healthy, calorie-free, no sugar natural sweetener. Countries all over the world have been using stevia in cooking for hundreds of years. While America usually finds these health remedies decades after everyone else has already been implementing them, at least we are jumping on the stevia band wagon instead of sticking to our good ol' corn syrup. Yes, that is sarcasm with having good and corn syrup in the same sentence. I will be having an informative fun facts post on stevia in the near future!
       I love looking at delicious, naughty dessert recipes I crave and trying my own healthy take on it. The other day Justin was reminiscing how good puppy chow was. We stopped and day-dreamed about the deliciousness for a moment, then looked at each other. "Why don't we just make our own variation.*light bulb* I know we can!" So if you haven't had puppy chow before, it's a real simple recipe and you usually have most of the ingredients in your pantry already.

All it takes is some sort of Chex cereal, peanut butter, chocolate chips, butter, vanilla, and powdered sugar. As you can see with these ingredients, it doesn't
quite fit my sugar-free diet.
We also do not eat peanut products, so we had to really figure out how to tweak the recipe but keep true to the yummy flavor profile the mix creates. Once you have put it all together, you get these cute little powdered handfuls of yumminess. hmmmmm....

   BUT THEN I FIGURED OUT A VERSION JUST AS DELICIOUS!

So I looked at every ingredient and figured out a substitute. Okay, full-disclosure, this recipe is 98% sugar-free, I figured that is close enough to my pledge of sugar-free-ness! Can't always have perfection on these things!

We did a Sprouts Market run looking for a sugar-free, gluten-free crunchy cereal alternative to regular Chex cereal. We couldn't find square shaped cereal that met our needs, so we found these Whole O's that actually worked good! It is "slightly sweetened", but it's only 4 grams of sugar for 2/3 cup and half that sugar is pomegranate juice not just cane sugar. You of course can use any variation of cereal you want, depending on your preference of ingredients.
 *we had tried this recipe before using popcorn, I do not recommend it, it got soggy! And half the fun of these is the good crunch texture that lasts.*
    As I said we do not use peanut butter in our house. We usually use raw almond butter, but lately we have really been getting into sunflower butter. There is this really subtle sweet note that you can get with sunflower butter that is slightly reminiscent of peanut butter. So that was the nut butter of choice for us to use for a sweet dessert. It is also nice that sunflower butter is like half the price of raw almond butter. We used the MaraNatha brand since it doesn't contain added sugar unlike most sunflower butters.
     The chocolate chip alternative was really easy, just use 100% unsweetened cooking chocolate and you are ready to go. Since I was at Sprouts, I grabbed the Guittard brand they had that came in a three pack of 2oz bars. Can't say unsweetened chocolate has the best flavor, SO BITTER, so when I melted it, I made sure to add a few packets of stevia to make it "chocolate chippy" tasting.

Lastly, since you sprinkle your puppy chow with a powdered sugar coating, I used the Truvia Brown Sugar blend we had. It, as its name suggests, is a thick brown sugar texture, so I put it in our magic bullet, and once blended, took on a nice powdery texture. If you look at the nutrition facts, it's not 100% sugar-free, but 1 gram from a tiny bit of sugar and molasses is pretty small. I totally recommend trying this stevia brown sugar when wanting to make 'sugar-free' chewy cookies like snickerdoodles. Makes them SO yummy without the guilt! So now that you have all the Family As You Go alternatives, let's look at the EXTREMELY simple recipe directions!

Stevia-Sweetened Puppy Chow

Author: Family As We Go
Recipe type: snack
Cook time: 15 minutes
Serves: matter how much you snack! 

Ingredients

• 12 ounce box of cereal (i.e. Nature's Path Whole O's or Chex squares)
• 2 tbls sunflower butter (or any nut butter of choice)
• 1/2-1 tbls butter
• a dash of vanilla 
• 4 oz unsweetened chocolate 
• 3 stevia packets
• 2 tsp Truvia brown sugar (or other stevia powder blend)

Instructions 

1. In a double broiler, add the chocolate, nut butter, and butter to melt. 
2. Blend the brown sugar in a magic bullet, food processor, or coffee blender, until powdery.
3. Once melted, add the 3 packets of stevia and vanilla and mix.
4. Pour your cereal in a large mixing bowl.
5. Once all your melted ingredients are mixed thoroughly, pour over your cereal. 
6. Use a large spoon and gently fold the chocolate mixture until it is evenly distributed on the cereal.
7.  Sprinkle the powdered sugar over the cereal and gently stir until evenly distributed. 
8. Store in a large ziplock bag or airtight container.

Hope you get the opportunity to try your own variation of this recipe! It's an easy, delicious snack for you and your kids when you are craving something sweet and crunchy.

Have you tried alternating recipes into healthier versions for your family? Do you use stevia as a sweetener substitute?