Celebrate National Cereal Day Today!

Today, March 7, 2015, is one of our fun food holidays that we keep track of here on The Chocolate Cult.  In honor of it, I'm going to share a recipe using cereal as well as the Pascha 85% Cacao Chocolate Chips that I was sent to test and write about for you all, Sisters and Brothers. Pascha Chocolates sent only the chips, all other ingredients were at my own expense. In order to test these I decided to try out a recipe idea I've had for a while, something simple but hopefully yummy. Let's start with the basics about the Pascha chips.

These are made with organic cocoa mass, organic sugar, organic cocoa butter, and organic vanilla -- that's it!  No soy lecithin or other ingredients. Of these four ingredients, the first three are also fair trade products.  I will say that the bag itself is smaller than most of the bags of chocolate chips you might find in your local grocery stores but consider the intensity of the chips, their organic ingredients, and the fair trade for most of these.  You can't compare these to generic or even the big brand names simply because the Pascha chocolate is focused on matters other than simply cheap chocolate.  You'd have to compare them to other brands of similar quality and when we do that, these are priced pretty fairly. On these qualities alone the product is excellent but let's talk about it in a recipe, one your Chocolate Priestess created based on years of making cereal treats.

Dark Golden Graham Goodies

Ingredients:

1/4 C Light Corn Syrup

4 T Imperial Margarine (I wanted to not use margarine or butter but the chips are so dark that you really do need the extra oils)

1 15oz jar of Natural Creamy Peanut Butter

1 8.8oz bag of Pascha 85% Cacao Bitter-Sweet Dark Chocolate Chips

4 heaping cups of Golden Graham cereal

Directions:

1) Lightly grease or spray a 2X9X13 inch page.

2) Pour corn syrup and peanut butter into a large cooking pot turn stove top on lowest setting.

3) Cut up margarine into small pieces and add to the peanut butter and corn syrup.  Turn up the heat just slightly then stir until thoroughly mixed and smooth.

4) Pour in the chocolate chips and stir quickly until well melted.  You may need help with the next steps.

5) Add in the cereal one cup at a time making sure to blend it well so that as much of it as possible is covered with the chocolate and peanut butter.

6) Pour the cereal mixture into the greased pan and smooth out as much as possible.

7) Store pan in the refrigerator for 1.5-2 hours. Remove and cut into bars; I cut mine into 32 bars and each one had about 162 calories.

8) You can store the treats either in the refrigerator or on your counter with a lid depending on the weather and how you like them -- cold or room temperature.

9) Make sure you have something to drink with these because the bitter-sweet chocolate will dry out your mouth.

There you have it, more great baking chocolate chips from Pascha earning this Canadian company yet another Sacrament Status here on The Chocolate Cult. 85% Cacao Chips may be intense for many of you but if you combine it with other ingredients as we did in this treats it can be a wonderful addition to your pantry and your cooking repertoire.