Cake Batter Puppy Chow Recipe
I’m a big fan of traditional puppy chow.
Our family has always called it “puppy chow”, but I know many call it “muddy buddies”.
I have such fond memories of my mom pulling out a big paper grocery bag and filling it with the powdered sugar for us to shake the Chex, chocolate, and peanut butter around to get it coated.
I can still remember the
I still love the traditional recipe! But, one day, I wondered what would happen if I just changed up the flavors a bit.
“Cake batter” flavored ice cream from Cold Stone is a favorite of mine, so I just decided to play around with bringing that flavor into the sweet crunchy goodness of puppy chow.
And. It. Worked.
I love the stuff! The flavors, the ease, the fluffiness…that cake powder has magical cake powers.
It would be such a fun addition to a birthday party dessert buffet or extra birthday treat for your kids on their special day (bonus points if you have them help you make it as a birthday activity!). You can also make it ahead of time, so it would be simple and easy to pull out and use when you are ready for it.
I’ve made this and packaged it up in a small snack bag to leave on a friend’s doorstep with a card on their birthday (usually with one of these Bible verses for birthdays written in their card), too.
And, let’s be honest, birthday or not, you could celebrate just about anything with this – anniversaries, 1st day of school, Christmas…Tuesday. 😁
I’ll leave it up to you.
Happy treat making!
Cake Batter Puppy Chow
Ingredients
- 5 cups Chex cereal (I prefer the Rice Chex)
- 10 oz (5 squares) vanilla flavored Almond Bark
- 1 1/2 cups yellow cake mix
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- vegetable shortening, optional
Instructions
- Melt Almond Bark according to the package directions, adding vegetable shortening to thin if desired.
- Pour the cereal, cake mix, and powdered sugar into a paper bag or container with a lid.
- Drizzle melted Almond Bark over the cereal and fold down the top of the paper bag or put the lid on the container.
- Shake bag or container until the cereal is evenly coated.
Notes
Tip - The above method worked just fine for me, but some people are having trouble with the Chex and Almond Bark clumping together. Try thinning out the Almond Bark a little with shortening and mixing the Chex with the melted Almond Bark before coating with the cake mix and powdered sugar.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 15 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 110Total Fat: 2gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 166mgCarbohydrates: 22gFiber: 1gSugar: 10gProtein: 1g
This information is just an estimate and may not be 100% accurate. Always double-check the nutritional information using your specific products and ingredients.
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Because I founds the other comments helpful, I wanted to add my own! I’m a long time lover of the traditional puppy chow so I knew I’d love this! I poured chocolate melts over Chex a little at a time, stirring well between each addition but needed to add two more cups to “unclump” it. I shook the cake/sugar mix over th bowlmwith no probleem, but I also had a ton of sugar/cake powder left at the bottom of the bowl so next time I’ll reduce to using one cup of cake mix. (I used white cake). I couldn’t get the sprinkles to stick and “show” as they all turned white. 🙂 Great recipe!
So glad it worked the traditional way for you, Jessica!
I did it the way you do normal puppy chow, chocolate first then shake with the powder. Worked just fine for me.
Ooo…I’m definitely trying white chocolate and coconut oil! YUM! I’m so glad you liked the recipe and thanks for the tip, Shinae!
I used white chocolate and instead of adding butter, try adding coconut oil. It turned out PERFECT! The white chocolate doesn’t seize and there’s a delicious coconut taste. Thanks for the recipe! It’s amazing!
That is such an adorable idea! I love the name!
I made this and added Easter m& m & called it bunny chow!!!
How funny! I first made it for a church potluck…and ended up having to send my husband to the store for more Chex, because I couldn’t stop myself from “tasting” it, so I had to make another batch to share! Happy birthday to your daughter!
i made this for my daughters bday party saturday and im afraid its so good it might not make it to the party!
I am making this for my stepdaughters 8th birthday party Wednesday. It is s hello kitty party so I’m calling it kitty chow. I can’t wait.
That is the best compliment! Especially from a non sweet-eater! You’re so welcome and I’m so happy you both liked it so much!
OMG this is sooooooo GOOD, YUUUMMMYYYY & EASY. My husband is not big on sweets but he loves this so much he says it should be ILLEGAL – LOL. Thank you for the recipe
Yum! I need to try funfetti! I love the red velvet kind! So glad you liked it!
I’ve never seen Brittney and Abby, but that is very cool that they were making it!
Thanks for the info! Food science fascinates me! After that first batched seized up, I actually did a little research to learn more about the specifics of the process and I’m so glad I did! I hate wasting good ingredients like that. 😉
Definitely no “healthy” claim on this one! 😉
Hilarious!
I hope you like it! And thank you so much for your sweet comment!
Oh, YUM! What a brilliant combination! So glad you guys liked it!
The kids and I wanted to try this but we didn’t have enough chex…so we mixed popcorn, chex, and fruit loops! It turned out perfect and the colors made it fun! DEFINITELY a keeper!!!
Love the name!
Can’t wait to try this! You are so cute and I am thankful for your encouraging blog. Keep it up! 🙂
Its called snow man poop!!!
Jeez everyone. It looks delicious and does not claim to be healthy. Stop with the fat/cholestrol tangent. No one cares. This is meant to be fun and taste good.
A little bit of food Science here. The reason the white chocolate seized up the first time you tried using it with butter was because butter is 20% water, and whenever you add water to melted chocolate it will seize up. You can use chocolate chips (or white chocolate chips) and shortening without difficulty; they even melt very easily in the microwave on account of their small surface area.
I’m always blessed ….but when I get a new goodie recipe I’m multi blessed …I just saw the the New Brittney and Abby show on TV…they were making this …so here I am. Thank ya fer posting this…
I used the funfetti cake mix and it turned out even better than the yellow mix. Great recipe! Thanks for sharing.
Since you’re allergic to peanut butter, you might try using almond butter. My sister uses it in place of our pb. It is a little more expensive, but it’s worth it!! Nutella is another great alternative.
There is a lemon puppy chow recipe you should try that uses white chocolate, lemon juice, butter, and lemon rind for the coating, then is tossed in powdered sugar. It’s fantastic!
Doing it in batches is a great idea! So is using Crispix! Yum! I’m so impressed that you feed so many soldiers (AKA hard-working people with huge appetites!)! I’m honored that you’d try this recipe to feed them. Thank you to them all (and your husband!) for their service to our country. And God bless you as an Army wife.
Interesting! I never would have guessed that buttermilk was a contributing flavor! Thank you so much for the info!
I usually coat my cereal in the chocolate mixture first and then in batches add it to the bag of powdered sugar to coat it. Helps with the clumping issue. Going to make this tonight and test it out on my husband’s soldiers (army family). I’m forever feeding extra mouths since my husband insists on sharing and my original puppy chow is always in demand. I make it by the box using crispix cereal. It never lasts very long around here.
That addictive tangy taste in a box mix cake is actually buttermilk, so adding that to a from scratch cake (or using buttermilk powder to make your own cake mix) makes for a delicious “from scratch” cake.
…Just going through my pins. Found this that I pinned a LONG time ago. I think this is where my daughter’s summer-school teacher got the recipe from. She made it at school and then gave me her recipe. The recipe book they sent home at the end of the session had THIS recipe. But, the one my daughter came up with, was slightly different. Either she just didn’t know it was actually almond bark they were using, or they actually used cake frosting. In any case, here’s what she did:
1 container of chocolate cake frosting
1 box of funfetti cake mix
And obviously, chex.
We put the cake frosting in a bowl and melted it in the microwave for 90 seconds.
Poured this over the chex, then added the cake mix.
It is DELICIOUS. And just a bit easier than the shortening and almond bark. No idea on the flavor difference though!
Just sayin’…
Thanks for posting it on your blog! Just went and checked it out. I LOVE that you put it in sundae glasses! Such a cute idea!
Oh, I love the original puppy chow, but I’ve come across quite a few people that are allergic to peanuts, so they haven’t been able to enjoy it either. I hope you enjoy this one!
Haha…to each his own, I guess! I’m a big fan of cake mix!
I hope it went over well at your family reunion!
I’ll have to try the lemon cake mix sometime! It sounds like it would taste like a lemon bar! Yum!
That’s so nice of you to make baskets for them! I hope they liked it!
Mmm..peanut butter and Devil’s Food sounds like an amazing combination!
Oooo…pink candy melts would be so much fun! What a great idea!
Using frosting is a great idea! I’ll have to try it sometime. Thanks for the suggestion!
This recipe was fun to try! I found it through Pinterest and just shared it on my blog today. Giving credit where it’s due, of course! 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
Im allergic to peanut butter so ive never quite understood why puppy chow is a big deal. but this looks AMAZING! i have to try soon!
Oh wow this is devine! I made mine with 1 tbl crisco, 10 oz pink chocolate melts, and funfetti cake mix. YUM!!! I melted the chocolate and crisco in a container in microwave, then stirred in the chex using a flexible spatula so as to not break up the chex. then i added it in batches to a ziploc bag that had the cake mix and powdered sugar and shook. So easy and yummy!
oh my WORD! did someone SERIOUSLY ask what the point of the cake mix is?? what in the WORLDDDDD!!
this is a great recipe!….BECAUSE of the idea that it’s cake BATTER. YUMMMM. bringing it to fam reunion where i know it will have a big bang hit! thanks for sharing with us!!!
i used the lemon cake mix and everyone loves it! great for summertime!
I was just thinking I needed something to take to my visiting teaching ladies! Thanks for the great idea. I will be making these tomorrow and putting them in a May basket for each of them!!
I added 2 heaping Tbsp of creamy peanut butter(to cut sweetness a bit & keep some traditional Muddy Buddy taste) & 2 Tbsp of margarine to the Almond Bark and used double boiler to heat. I also used Devil’s Food cake mix instead of the yellow cake mix. Very good!! I’ll be making this again 🙂
Charlene, just the dry cake mix powder! No eggs or oil! 😉
This might be a dumb question but when adding the cake mix…are you actually making the cake batter with eggs and oil and all that or just using the powder of it?
Oh, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU so much for this alternative to puppy chow! My son has a peanut allergy and this will allow us something he can enjoy too!
Oh, I forgot to add that I added a bag of Rice Krispie candy sprinkles when I added the cake batter and powdered sugar. These are the sprinkled used when making Rice Krispie treats; the kind that don’t melt. They worked nicely when flipping and actually stuck to the chex. Very pretty!
I just made this tonight for my daughter to take for her 1/2 birthday treat tomorrow…. OHHH EMMMM GEEEE!!! Totally yumohrific!! I added approx. 2 tsp. of shortening to the almond bark; then poured it over the rice chex in a huge container. Put the lid on and just kept slowly flipping the container over and over until they were coated. Then I added the cake mix and powdered sugar and did the same… flipped the container over and over. They were perfectly coated! No clumping of the coating with cake batter. DEFinitely a keeper recipe. Thanks for sharing~
Great idea. I am impressed!
I am impressed!
MJB
This was delicious! i used white chocolate candy melts and funfetti cake mix – I didn’t even use the powdered sugar! The sprinkles from the funfetti didn’t really stick, but it is SO yummy!!
This was a big hit for a church get together. I put the rice chex in a bowl. Melted white chocolate chips in the microwave and poured on top of the chex. I actually stirred it with a spoon. Then added somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 cup yellow cake mix and sprinkles and stirred again. Then added powdered sugar. After it had set up, I did have to break apart a bit because the chocolate had hardened and was it yummy!!
I made this with chocolate bark and the almond bark. I liked the chocolate version a lot better. It wasn’t as sweet. Also it works much better if you put the chocolate on first stir then add the dry mix….Very good! Great school snack the kids loved it!
I made a half batch this weekend. I used white chocolate chips (best melted in a ziploc bag in a bowl of hot water). It turned out great but I found that the white chocolate overpowered the cake flavor and was too sweet (I already left out the powdered sugar). I think that next time I would try a combination of candy melts and white chocolate. Candy melts are like chocolate but have a much higher wax content and less flavor. I think this would bring out the cake flavor and balance the sweetness.
My family also brought up the possibility of regular puppy chow coated with chocolate cake mix. Yummm.
I just made this and it was wonderful. The shortening tip was a huge success. We had no problems, besides eating way too much of this goodness. We sent it for our kids snack day and it was a huge it. Thanks for sharing.
I haven’t made it yet, but it sounds wonderful. Never used Almond Bark ( I know..) so thanks for the ‘don’t use butter’ comment. Wouldn’t have known that. Thanks for the idea.
I made this today with the kids and they loved it super yummy this one is going in the family cookbook 🙂
Agent – Maybe if you add them with or right after the Almond Bark. I tried to add them into the mix and they just fell to the bottom, so I sprinkled them on top!
Anonymous – I didn’t even think of adding colored M&Ms! That’s a great idea!
i added colorful pink/white/red valentine colored M&Ms instead of the sprinkles…nummy!! Would work w/any holiday w/a burst of color!
My maker never intended for me to eat cows milk. His propose for cows milk was to help a 40lb baby calf grow into a several hundred pound cow in just over a year! I don’t disagree that items with 1 ingredient are better, but I’ll never claim all of them were created for me!
On another note… trying this tonight… cake batter and all!
would it be good if you mix in colored sprinkles with the mix:) not just putting it over the finale product
Dr. Dana, I must respectfully disagree. If saturated fat caused heart disease then people would have had a higher rate of heart disease prior to the 20th century and the numbers would have gone down. I do not believe in the cholesterol hypothesis as published by Ancel Keys. I believe that heart disease is actually caused by factory fats (aka trans fats and polyunsaturated oils) like those found in cake mix. Butter is the kind of food that our Maker intended us to eat, not “foods” processed in a factory.
Technically, anything with saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart disease. Butter would most likely cause more problems relating to heart disease, while the cake mix would exacerbate diabetic patients. 🙂
Respectfully yours,
Dr. Dana, PhD, MS, RCEP
Made this today and its gone tonight! By far the yummiest/easiest sweet snack ever
This was delicious!! Thank you so much for a wonderful recipe!
yes. BUTTTER IS GOOD!!! and cake mix does taste delicious!
Ms. Art Teacher, your comment cracked me up. You’re absolutely right. Boxed cake mix is fully of all sorts of crazy things! They sure found a way to make those things taste good, though! I don’t know how else I would have been able to get those flavors into this recipe! And you’ll never hear me say a bad thing about butter – love the stuff, even if I don’t love the calories that come with it!
Personally, I believe Butter is a natural food that comes from an animal and is extremely healthy. (Fats don’t make you fat) Cake Mix is an unnatural, highly processed food that contains factory-made fats that cause heart disease. Just saying.
Like others have said, if you mix the chex mix with the chocolate first using a wooden spoon and THEN add the cake mix and powdered sugar, it won’t clump near as bad! Mine turned out perfect and was a big hit! Thanks so much for the yummy recipe! 🙂
SO I just tried this and it is the BEST recipe EVER! I did modify it a little bit… kind of combined this recipe with the puppy chow one and this is what I did:
5 cups of Rice Chex
1/2 a stick of butter
1 1/2 cups of chocolate morsels (I dont like white chocolate)
2 cups of Funfetti mix
1/2 cup powdered sugar.
DELICIOUS! Thank you so much for this idea!
I love this recipe! I made it with 1 12 oz bag of white chocolate chips and Funfetti cake mix. It was so sweet it didn’t need any powdered sugar. Thanks for sharing this idea!
Thanks for the idea. Great for kids who are allergic to peanut butter and can’t have the regular recipe
I just made this an hour ago! I tbsp on oil works in place of shortening (I forgot to get some). I put the chex in a big bowl and just poured the chocloate over it and mixed it with a wooden spoon. Then I poured the cake batter and sugar in, put the lid on the bowl, and shook it. Coated perfectly and didn’t clump at all!
Very very smart! Love this idea!!
Delicious! I made with funfetti cake mix. Thanks for the great idea!
You might want to try mixing the almond bark with a 1/4 – 1/2 brick of (cooking grade) parafin wax. It will help the bark smoother and help coat the Chex mix better.
Definitly trying this on my next day off. My boys love trying new things and this is a must try. Thanks for sharing:)
This looks so yummy! I must try this one out, and soon. 🙂
I’m so about to make this with strawberry cake mix!!!
Oh yes, I’m sure any other cake mixes would work great! I just happened to have the yello cake mix on hand. And funfetti would add some fun color. The flavor combinations are endless! 🙂
I think this sounds good. I am like Megan I bet you could use other flavors such as lemon cake mix, and cherry chip, or the funfetti mixes. I will give this a try.
Wonder if we used actual funfetti mix?
The cake mix both helps coat the Almond Bark-covered Chex and adds cake flavor. You can leave it out and just increase the amount of powdered sugar, but I wanted to add the cake flavor to the mix. 🙂
What is the purpose of the cake mix?
NOw I have got to try this!!!
Anonymous, so sorry it didn’t work for you! Maybe if you wanted to try it again, it would work if you stirred the Chex with the Almond Bark first, then coated it with the cake mix and powdered sugar.
this did not turn out for me, i ended up with a clump of white chocolate with chex and mix
It would coat it way better if you mixed in the melted almond bark with the chex…like rice crispy treats (still warm and gooey). I put the dry mix in the bottom of a Ziploc, put in the covered chex, put a little more dry mix on top. Close. Shake. Enjoy.
Oh No there goes my Weight Watchers. I have got to try this. Thanks for sharing.
omg YUM
So do you put it all together and shake it cause I know the muddy buddies you put the chocolate on before the powder sugar…. But I have got to try this!
this is a smart idea!
WOW!!! That sounds awesome!!!!
OH HOLY NIGHT! That looks delicious! You want to know a secret? I’ve never made puppy chow! I think this one is begging to be made and sent in a care package 🙂 HEAVEN!