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This Strawberries and Cream Puppy Chow is a no bake dessert recipe that makes a cute, festive treat for Valentine’s Day. This easy puppy chow is perfect for sharing with family and friends!
Looking for more puppy chow recipe ideas? Try my Caramel Apple Puppy Chow or this Banana Pudding Puppy Chow!
This Is One Of Our Favorite Puppy Chow Recipes
Puppy chow is an awesome, classic treat. You may have also heard it referred to as Muddy Buddies. The classic version is coated in chocolate, peanut butter and powdered sugar and is quite delicious.
This version of puppy chow is a twist on the classic that’s perfect for Valentine’s Day, or even a baby shower. Swap out the classic chocolate and peanut butter and instead use white and pink candy coating with powdered sugar and strawberry cake mix. The flavor is a delicious and fruity twist!
I am so in love with this puppy chow. It tastes awesome, is SO addicting and I love the pink and white colors! It’s also easy to make, package and snack on, so it’s great for gift giving. Does it get any better?
What You’ll Need
With only 6 ingredients, it’s easy to gather everything you need for this puppy chow. You should be able to find everything at a grocery store, Walmart or Target.
- Rice Chex Cereal: Rice chex is great because it’s unsweetened and doesn’t have a strong flavor that’ll interfere with the flavors in the puppy chow. As a bonus, it’s also gluten free!
- Melting chocolate: You need white and either pink or red (I used pink). There are various brands out there. Wilton candy melts are a popular one. You could also use Ghirardelli white chocolate melting wafers and color some of them with gel icing color to get pink or red.
- Powdered sugar: For covering the white chex.
- Strawberry cake mix: For covering the pink or red chex. This will need to be heat treated.
- M&Ms: I use red, pink and white M&Ms, but feel free to add other candy with similar colors.
How and Why to Heat Treat Cake Mix
Technically flour is a raw food, which means cake flour is raw until baked. Since it’s raw, it can contain germs that cause food poisoning, such as E.coli. The CDC actually investigated incidents related to raw flour and cake mix starting back in 2016. While you don’t normally have to worry about it because most things using flour are baked, this recipe uses cake mix. So heat treating our cake mix is needed to avoid any issues.
You can heat treat your cake mix either in the microwave or in the oven. If using the microwave, put the cake mix in a microwave-safe bowl and heat in 30 second intervals, stirring between each, until the cake mix reaches 160 degrees F throughout. If using your oven, spread your cake mix evenly on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 300 degrees F, stirring every couple of minutes, until it reaches 160 degrees F. Let your cake mix cool and sift it before using, if it becomes clumpy.
How To Make Strawberries and Cream Puppy Chow
Add Melted White Chocolate: Divide the rice chex cereal evenly between two bowls. Add the melted white chocolate to one bowl of the chex cereal and gently stir to coat evenly. Be careful to not break the chex cereal too much.
Coat In Powdered Sugar: Add the powdered sugar to the white chocolate covered chex cereal and gently stir to coat evenly with powdered sugar.
Add Melted Pink Chocolate and Cake Mix: Repeat the same process with the other half of the chex cereal, red/pink melting chocolate and strawberry cake mix (instead of the powdered sugar).
Cool and Combine: Allow both mixtures to dry completely and then combine the two kinds of puppy chow together and add the M&Ms.
Perfect Valentine’s Day Treat
This strawberries and cream puppy chow is so tasty and festive! The colors are great for Valentine’s Day and it’s snack-ability makes it the perfect gift. Plus, it’s a nice change from candy that doesn’t require a lot of work or using your oven. Package it in a cute box or jar with some ribbon around it and you’re all set. You could even attach the recipe so that they can make it again one day.
More Great Valentine’s Day Recipes
- Valentine’s Day Fudge
- Conversation Heart Cupcakes
- Chocolate Covered Strawberries
- Love Bug Oreo Balls
NOTE: This is not for dog consumption.
Print
Valentine’s Day Strawberries and Cream Puppy Chow
- Prep Time: 30 mins
- Cook Time: 2 minutes
- Total Time: 30 mins
- Yield: About 6 Servings
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Microwave
- Cuisine: American
Description
Valentine’s Day Strawberries and Cream Puppy Chow is a no bake dessert recipe that makes a cute & festive treat for Valentine’s Day. This easy puppy chow is perfect for sharing with family and friends!
Ingredients
- 5 cups rice chex cereal, divided
- 5 oz white melting chocolate
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 5 oz red or pink melting chocolate
- 1/2 cup strawberry cake mix, toasted
- 1 cup white, pink and red M&Ms
Instructions
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Serving
- Calories: 637
- Sugar: 70.1 g
- Sodium: 326 mg
- Fat: 26.8 g
- Carbohydrates: 94.4 g
- Protein: 6.7 g
- Cholesterol: 16.8 mg
Hi Lindsay- Thanks for sharing this idea! I found it on Pinterest and I’m glad I did because I also love your blog! Hannah 🙂
Thanks Hannah! I’m so glad you found the blog! It means a lot that you enjoy it! 🙂
My chocolate didn’t cover all the ches cereal – is it supposed too?
Hi Rachel! Yes, it should cover all the cereal. You should have used 10 oz of chocolate total (5 oz white, 5 oz red) and 5 cups of chex divided between the 2 colors. It may take a few minutes of stirring to get it coat the chex fully, but if you need to you can certainly add a little more chocolate. Keep in mind though that the powdered sugar and cake mix will also coat the chex and make it all look more fully coated. There should be enough chocolate on the chex that it can stick to the powder.
I just made some of this as part of our 14 days of love. I think my hubsy may try to eat the whole bag at once!
Haha! I’m glad you are enjoying it! I love the 14 days of love idea – that’s awesome!
Reblogged this on ally_haslett and commented:
sweet
Sorry, but I find it hilerious you had to give the disclaimer that it’s not for dog consuption!
Hi Christine! It does seem a little funny and although I’ve never been asked myself, I’ve seen the question posted elsewhere so I figured I’d jump the gun and go ahead and answer it. I think it may be that people from other parts of the world aren’t familiar with puppy chow. 🙂
Do you just mix the red candy melts with loose cake mix?
Hi Helen! No, you want to use the cake mix in place of the powdered sugar for the red candy melt covered chex. So for the white chocolate chex, you coat those with regular powdered sugar. For the red candy melt chex, you coat those with the cake mix. That way you get strawberry flavored chex and “cream” flavored chex. Does that make sense?
Love this! I just made cherry puppy chow using cherry gelatin. Love the cake mix idea too!
Thanks Aimee! The gelatin is an awesome idea too! You’re making my mind go in crazy directions, haha!
what are red candy melts?
sorry! I Just went through all the comments and saw this question was asked already.
No problem! Happy Puppy Chow making 🙂
Looks so yummy and I wanna make it for my Co-workers at world market! I always wanted to do something like this for Christmas now they might get different colors for different holidays! I will be the chex crack dealer! Keep em wanting more!
Haha, great idea Karyn! What an awesome co-worker you are to have! 🙂
Love this! Got all my ingredients today & im makin’ this for my mama 2moro 4 Valentine’s Day♥ Thanks for this spectacular idea girl. She’s guna L0VE itttt…. 😉
Thanks Lonnie! Happy Valentine’s Day! 🙂
This looks great! What do you do with the rest of the box of cake mix? Can I make the strawberry cream cheese bars with a little less melted butter and milk? And maybe make them in an 11×7 pan?
Hi Caroline, yes that’s a great idea! There’s usually about 2 1/2 cups of dry mix in a box, so if you used 1/2 cup for the puppy chow, you’ll have used about a fifth of the mix. Just reduce the butter and milk for the bars about a fifth and you should be good. The other thing you could do is that there are a number of recipes on the blog for things that use a funfetti cake mix – you substitute one of those for the strawberry cake mix. For example, the rice krispie treats, the pancakes or the ice cream pie.
Very cute, and I love regular puppy chow!
Thank you Amy!
What are red candy melts? Are they in the candy or baking aisle?
Hi Carrie! Red candy melts are kind of like white chocolate. They are vanilla flavored. You can find them at craft stores like Michael’s and Hobby Lobby. I think you can even find them in Wal-Mart.
You can get different colored melts in the craft section at walmart. They are with all the cake making items.
You’re right Jennifer! I have since seen them there too. Thanks!
Made this for my daughters daycare! Delicious!
Thanks for sharing Tara! I’m so glad you liked it!
Looks awesome Dub! I plan on trying this one for sure- awesome ideas yet again! 🙂
Thanks Nelly!
Lindsay – I love the puppy chow! The two different colors is so pretty. Almost too pretty to eat. 🙂 Almost! Valentine’s Day will be here before we know it.
Thanks Sally!
oh this looks amazing! genius with the strawberry cake mix, i never would have thought of that! puppy chow is a weakness of mine, so i will have to remember this one! and you’re right those boxes are perfect, and SO cute!
Thanks Carrie! I’m so in love with the boxes! 🙂