Who didn’t love rice crispy treats growing up? I decided to take this childhood favorite and sweetened them up even more with white chocolate and peppermint candy canes!

The typical rice crispy treat recipe calls for butter, but instead, I substituted butter for coconut oil. Aside from its great taste, coconut oil has plenty of health benefits, and I was on a mission to use it as a substitute in the treats!

Ingredients:

• 7 Cups Rice Crispy Cereal
• ¾ of a 16-ounce bag of large marshmallows
• ¼ Cup Coconut Oil
• 8 Candy Canes, crushe
• ½ Cup White Chocolate Chips

Directions:

To get started, melt the coconut oil in a microwave-safe bowl. The oil will need to be melted if it is still in the solid stage. Then, in an extra large microwave-safe bowl, add your marshmallows and put them in the microwave for 30 seconds. Take them out, add the coconut oil, and then put it back in the microwave for 1 minute and 30 seconds.

Once you take out the marshmallows out of the microwave, immediately add half of the rice cereal and fold it into the mixture using a spatula. Then, add the remaining cereal. Once all of the ingredients are evenly combined, you want to lay out the mixture on a medium-sized baking sheet that is lined with parchment paper.

Now, evenly spread the mixture onto the baking sheet. The best tools for this are your hands, which need to be lightly greased so they don’t stick to the food. Once the mixture is evenly spread out, let it sit and cool for 20-30 minutes.

While the mixture is cooling, you can begin to boil a pot of water to create a hot water bath to melt the chocolate. Once the water begins to boil, lower the heat to medium/high and place a tempering pot over the water and then add the chocolate chips to melt. The chocolate tends to be thick, so I added no more than a ¼ cup in total of the hot boiling water to thin out the chocolate.

By using a whisk, stir the chocolate so that it becomes runny and smooth. If the chocolate is too runny, let it sit and cool for 5-10 minutes before drizzling over the treats.

At this point, take the candy canes and place them into a large plastic bag. By using the smooth side of a meat pounder, gently crush the candy. Try to avoid making the candy too small. It is nice to have chunky pieces in the mix so that it adds texture, and it also looks pretty!

You can now begin to cut your rice crispy treats into large squares by using a serrated knife. Some of the outside edges will be uneven, but you can cut those edges so the squares are more even.

Now that your rice crispy treats are cut and your chocolate is melted you can begin to drizzle and decorate!

Take a teaspoon to drizzle the chocolate over the treats. Once you drizzle the chocolate, you need to immediately sprinkle the crushed candy cane bits over the treats. The chocolate immediately sinks into the cracks of the treats, so as soon as they are drizzled, add the candy so that is sticks onto the treats.

As each treat is decorated, place them on a drying sheet to cool for 1-2 hours. If you are not serving these right away, you can wrap 2-4 treats at a time, tightly in saran wrap. Do not layer the treats on top of one another.

Serve on a platter, garnished with whole candy canes to get more into the holiday spirit!