Fruit Berry Marshmallow Treats

Last week, I decided to make a special treat for our K-4 Bible Buddy students. What I had planned on making were fruit-flavored rice krispie treats. However, our local grocery store had sold out of the bargain bags of puffed rice, or rice krispies, cereal. This happens when you live in a rural town with one grocery store. After five minutes of looking over the bags and boxes of cereal, I decided to buy fruit berry crunch cereal because I knew it would look festive. Plus, most children life fruit and berry flavored cereal.

Tonight, the twenty-seven Bible Buddies unanimously declared the fruit berry marshmallow treats to be wonderful and delicious. High praise indeed from elementary school students! 

Making fruit berry marshmallow treats is easy. My go to marshmallow treat recipe is:

Ingredients

• 3 Tbsp. butter, or margarine
• 1-10 oz. bag miniature marshmallows
• 6 cups of cereal 

Directions

Microwaving times are based on my 900 watt microwave.

• Place butter in a large, microwaveable bowl.
• Microwave for 15-20 seconds, or until melted
• Add 10 oz. bag of miniature marshmallows to the melted butter
• Stir until the marshmallows are coated with butter
• Microwave the butter-coated marshmallows for 1 minute.
• Remove bowl from microwave and stir until the melted marshmallows and the butter are combined. If necessary, microwave an additional 30 seconds.
• Add six cups of cereal
• Stir gently until the cereal is well coated with the melted marshmallow mixture. 
• Spoon the cereal mixture into a buttered 8"x 8" square cake pan.

Warning: Before touching the marshmallow-coated cereal, butter your hands liberally and keep a tablespoon of butter handy to recoat your hands to prevent the melted marshmallows from sticking to you.

• Press the cereal mixture into the pan with clean, well-buttered hands until the cereal is level and contains no gaps. I tried using wax paper, plastic wrap sprayed with pan coat, and other methods of pressing the cereal into the buttered pan. In my opinion, using well-buttered hands is best.
• Let the pan set at room temperature for about an hour.
• Turn the square of  marshmallow cereal mixture out onto a cutting board.
• If the mixture is still soft, place the square back into the pan, bottom side up and let sit for another thirty or forty minutes.
• Turn the cereal treat square back out onto the cutting board.
• Slice the square in half. 
• Slice each half in half. You will now have four long slices of cereal treat that is about two inches wide.
• Slice each piece into fourths. You should now have sixteen squares that are about two inches by two inches. 

The Bible Buddy students loved these festive looking treats.