Cheerios are not just for breakfast anymore.
The cereal bowl should not be the only destination for Cheerios. These toasted oats add texture and flavor to cookies just as rolled oatmeal does. The numerous varieties of Cheerios all adapt well to cookie recipes. Change your usual cookie routine and make a dessert with breakfast cereal.
Breakfast Cookies
Turn your breakfast of cereal and dried fruit into a hand-held cookie for a quick snack or on-the-go breakfast. A recipe on Food.com adds raisins, oatmeal and Cheerios cereal to a cookie base made with peanut butter. The inclusion of the peanut butter, fruit and cereals make the cookies a healthier option to chocolate chip cookies. To change the recipe and adapt it to your personal preferences, substitute chocolate chips for the raisins or use Honey Nut or Apple Cinnamon Cheerios instead of regular Cheerios.
Snickerdoodles
Snickerdooles are traditional sugar cookies rolled in cinnamon sugar before baking to create a sweet and crunchy topping. The Caramel Cookie website adds Cheerios to the mixture to make both crispy and chewy versions of snickerdoodles. The recipe calls for Honey Nut Cheerios, but you can substitute Apple Cinnamon or Cinnamon Burst Cheerios for even more cinnamon flavor in the cookies.
No-bake Cookies
Cookies do not always need to be baked in the oven. The Cheerios website has a no-bake recipe for cookies. The Cheerios cereal and pastel candies are mixed into a melted peanut butter and almond bark mixture and spooned onto wax paper to cool. The cookies in the recipe have a spring theme, but this can be changed by using darker colored candies or substituting melted chocolate for the almond bark. Chopped peanuts enhance the nutty flavor from the peanut butter, but they can be omitted as desired.
Crispy Berry Cookies
Dress up your plain cookies with a coating of melted white chocolate. A recipe using Berry Burst Cheerios in a crispy cookie recipe on Tablespoon.com includes such a chocolaty topping. Berry Burst Cheerios is a variety of Cheerios with freeze-dried raspberries, strawberries and blueberries. You do not have to use Berry Burst Cheerios in the white chocolate-drizzled recipe. Use any type of Cheerios you have available in your pantry. Change the topping and use melted dark or milk chocolate for the drizzle instead of white chocolate, or instead of drizzling melted chocolate on top, spread cake frosting between two cookies to make your own Cheerios sandwich from this crispy cookie recipe.
Tags: Burst Cheerios, peanut butter, Berry Burst, Berry Burst Cheerios, almond bark, Apple Cinnamon
