Eats: Honey Glazed Snack Mix

Hello! The local tulip festival saves the biggest of its three parades for the last day of the festival. Friends who live along the parade route always invite a crowd to watch this event, called the Muzik (Music) Parade. They rope off their front lawn to reserve the seating, and all the guests have to do is show up with their own seating and a snack to share. 

Speaking of snacks, a few weeks back, in the mood for some homemade Chex Mix (I use this recipe), I bought the store-brand version of Chex in order to make that treat. 

Or at least I thought I did! Upon closer inspection when I got home, I discovered that my box of "Multi-grain Squares" was actually a knock-off of Life, a sweeter cereal than Chex. Oops! 

Well, by now I've accumulated a few cereal-based snack mix recipes, so yesterday I decided to look through them to see if I could find one that would work with those Multi-grain Squares and would serve as my contribution to the parade-viewing festivities. 

Success was mine with the following recipe, which I'd clipped from a Taste of Home magazine: (I'll give the recipe as it was written, then add my notes afterward)

Honey Glazed Snack Mix (adapted from a recipe by Lucile Cline, Wichita, Kansas)

6 cups Crispix
5 cups miniature pretzels
1  1/2 cups pecan halves
1/2 cup butter, cubed
1/2 cup honey

Preheat oven to 325. In a large bowl, combine the Crispix, pretzels and pecans. In a small saucepan, combine butter and honey. Cook and stir until butter is melted and mixture is smooth. Pour over cereal mixture and mix well. 

Transfer to two greased 15-in. x 10-in. x 1-in. baking pans. Bake at 325 for 15 minutes, stirring every five minutes. Cool on wire racks. Store in an airtight container. Yield: 10 cups. 

Notes: as you can see, the recipe calls for Crispix, which is similar to Chex. But since the recipe makes a sweet rather than savory snack, I figured that the slightly sugary taste of my Life-type cereal would work just fine. 

I also changed the baking instructions, beginning with using my roasting pan instead of the two 15x10 pans specified. I did this because it's easier to stir a mixture in a roasting pan than it is in a 15x10 pan (it has steeper sides than the 15x10 pan does). 

But because using the roasting pan meant the mixture would be in a thicker layer, I raised the oven temperature to 350. I still stirred the snack mix every five minutes, as mentioned in the recipe.

I found that the mixture needed close to 30 minutes total, but I was erring on the side of caution. If the honey/butter glaze ended up a bit "wet", the finished product would be sticky. My snack mix turned out plenty dry, with a few over-browned pecans that had to be discarded, so I could have baked it for a few minutes less. 

Here's how it turned out:

It turned out great - and it was great to find a use for my grocery shopping mistake!