Birthday Cake Puppy Chow

I wanted to make this for Parker to take to school tomorrow for his birthday treat, but it turns out that the candy coating may have been processed on equipment that processed nuts, so it became a no go for Parker's class. However, Aiden's class has no allergies, so he will be taking this.  Parker will be taking Melting Moments.  I don't think I've posted those yet, so I'll get that recipe up soon.  This didn't quite coat as well as it could have, but perhaps it's because I threw it all in the bag at once.  The instructions are written out how I'm pretty sure it would coat all of the cereal a little better.  This is tasty and VERY sweet.  It'll make a great snack for preschool and a little goes a LONG ways.  Yummy!

Ingredients

5 cups Rice Chex cereal (I used Crispex)

10 oz (5 squares) vanilla flavored Almond Bark

1 1/2 cups yellow cake mix

1/2 cup powdered sugar

vegetable shortening, optional

Directions

1. Melt Almond Bark according to the package directions, adding vegetable shortening to thin if desired.
2. Pour the cereal into a paper bag or container with a lid.
3. Drizzle melted Almond Bark over the cereal and fold down the top of the paper bag or put the lid on the container.
4. Shake bag or container until the cereal is evenly coated.
5. Pour in powdered sugar and cake mix and close the container again
6. Shake until the cereal is completely covered with dry ingredients.
7. Add some sprinkles for color if desired.
8. Try REALLY hard not to eat the entire batch!

Cake Batter Pancake

Okay, so I thought these would be perfect for Aiden's birthday dinner, but we had a slight problem. We ended up buying a butter cake mix instead of a yellow cake mix. Note, these are completely different. I'm pretty sure they would be AWESOME with a yellow cake mix, but I couldn't force myself to eat these with the butter cake mix. I certainly want to try them again because they weren't awful, they just had a taste that was off from the mix.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2/3 cup yellow cake mix

1 tablespoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1-2 cups milk

sprinkles

Directions

1. Combine flour, cake mix, baking powder, sugar and salt in a bowl and mix.
2. Add 1 cup of milk, egg and vanilla extract and stir until smooth. You want the batter to look like regular pancake batter; not too thin, not too thick. This will vary greatly on the brand of cake mix you use. Start with 1 cup of milk and add more if needed. *You may need to have small taste test to see if the pancakes are flavored enough, if not, add a little more yellow cake mix until desired flavor is reached**
3. Preheat a skillet on medium-high heat.
4. Fold desired amount of sprinkles into batter.
5. Pour batter in 1/4 cup measurements onto skillet and let cook until bubbles form on top, about 2-3 minutes. Flip and cook for 1 minute more.
6. Serve with vanilla glaze.

Glaze Ingredients

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

assorted sprinkles

Directions

Mix milk, extract and powdered sugar until glaze forms. You may need to add a little more sugar or water/milk to reach desired consistency. I needed to add more milk. Mix into glaze and drizzle on pancakes.