High-Protein Puppy Chow

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If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I’m a BIG fan of Magic Spoon Cereal.

If you’ve never heard of Magic Spoon, allow me to enlighten you. It’s a high-protein, low-carb cereal that tastes amazing. If you’re keto, this cereal will be perfect for you.

Now it’s 100% honesty time. When I first heard about this cereal, I had zero intention of ever buying it. For two reasons:

1. I LOVE breakfast cereal. I believe cereal should be its own food group, and it is by far my biggest weakness. And I’m not talking Kashi or healthy cereals, I’m talking about Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Lucky Charms, Applejacks, you name it. So, a low-carb cereal did not at all sound appealing to me.
2. It’s pretty expensive. This cereal ends up being nearly $10 per box, which if you compare it to regular cereal at the store, seems absolutely absurd. I’ve since learned that it’s totally worth it to me, and if you break the price down per serving ($1.40 per serving) you’ll see that it’s much more comparable to a protein bar or other high-protein snacks (Magic Spoon has 11g protein per serving). When you look at it that way instead of comparing it to Corn Flakes, it’s much more reasonable!

“OK, you sound very biased- what’s the catch?”

I hear you.

A while back, Magic Spoon offered to send me cereal to try, no strings attached, and I fell in love very quickly. I became an instant customer and fan.

It tastes very similar to regular cereal I love, and I’m all about the extra protein! I’m never concerned with my sugar intake, so the low-carb aspect doesn’t necessarily matter to me, but you’d never be able to tell this is low carb. It has become a staple for me!

I’ll do a full review of the cereal at some point, but if you want to know my favorite flavor, it’s a tossup between Fruity (which is spot-on Froot Loops flavor) and Cinnamon (which is just like Cinnamon Toast Crunch).

Since falling in love with the product, I’ve signed up as an affiliate. What does that mean? It simply means that I can provide you with a code to get you free shipping, and I get a small commission for referring you. That’s it! I do not work for Magic Spoon, I am not sponsored, and they are not paying me for this recipe.

I just truly love it, and I want you guys to be able to try it too!

If you do want to give it a try, you can use the code Cheatday at checkout to get yourself free shipping! Check ’em out if you want to try some– for this recipe, I used the Cocoa & Frosted flavors, but you really can’t go wrong with any of them.

Now, getting back to the recipe. We’re going to make 2 different flavors of puppy chow here: Chocolate Peanut Butter, and Vanilla Cake Batter.

Chocolate Peanut Butter

If there is a better combo in the world than peanut butter and chocolate, I have not yet found it.

I absolutely love chocolate peanut butter puppy chow- it’s essentially cereal mixed with peanut butter, melted chocolate, and powdered sugar. What’s not to love?

The problem is, as you can imagine, that it is quite high in calories. If sugar is a concern for you, puppy chow is usually about as high-sugar as you can get… but not here!

All you have to do is mix everything together in a bowl and you’re ready to go! I keep this stored in the fridge to keep the chocolate coating nice and hard, but this will keep at room temperature as well- it’ll just be a bit softer.

I use regular peanut butter here, but you can try it with powdered peanut butter if you’re looking to save some extra calories. If you go that route, you’ll need to add a little extra chocolate to compensate for the lack of liquid. I wouldn’t recommend adding milk or water, because then it won’t solidify very well to pick it up and eat.

Vanilla Cake Batter

For the vanilla cake batter puppy chow, we’re actually going to add some cake mix as part of the coating!

I used Pillsbury Funfetti Cake Mix, but any cake mix you want will work. If you want an authentic cake batter flavor, I recommend the funfetti, but a yellow cake mix will work as well, it just may not have quite as authentic of a flavor.

Do you need to heat up the cake mix?

This is where I’ll leave it up to your discretion. Something that a lot of people don’t know is  that raw cookie dough is unsafe to eat not because of the raw eggs, but the raw flour.

For me, I don’t worry about it much. But if you want to play it safe, you can heat up the cake mix a little bit before mixing to kill off the bacteria.

If you have a thermometer, getting the flour/cake mix to 160 degrees F is generally thought of as safe. Without checking the temperature, you can accomplish that by microwaving for about one minute. I stop the microwave every 15 seconds to mix up the powder so it doesn’t burn.

Other than that, this recipe is as simple as mix, shake, and enjoy!

What if I can’t get Magic Spoon?

The protein in this recipe comes from the cereal- I didn’t want to make a puppy chow that was just covered with protein powder, because I was worried it would taste too much like straight protein powder.

That being said, Magic Spoon is currently only available in the US, and I know many can’t/don’t want to afford it. That’s totally fine!

The beauty of this recipe is that you can use ANY cereal you want. Special K protein, Kashi, or any other healthier cereal will work great.

And if you do want to create a high-protein version from a regular ol’ cereal, my food-blogging friend and (unofficial) mentor Mason Woodruff has a great recipe on this blog! He uses regular ol’ Chex and some protein powder, so check that one out if you need an alternative.

And a reminder that if you DO want to try Magic Spoon, the code Cheatday will get you free shipping. I know it’s not much, but every dollar saved certainly helps.

Continue to Content

High-Protein Puppy Chow

Yield: 4 Servings

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 5 minutes

A high-protein version of puppy chow (or muddy buddies) without the protein powder flavor. If chocolate is your style, you can make yourself the chocolate peanut butter version, and if you're a vanilla fan, the cake batter will be for you!

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Ingredients

For Chocolate Peanut Butter Puppy Chow

• 56g (2 Servings) Cocoa Magic Spoon Cereal
• 32g (2 Tbsp) Creamy Peanut Butter
• 28g Chocolate Chips (I use Lily's Sugar-Free Milk Chocolate Chips)
• 35g Powdered Sugar Substitute (I used Swerve)

For Cake Batter Puppy Chow

• 56g (2 Servings) Frosted Magic Spoon Cereal
• 43g Funfetti Cake Mix
• 56 g Milk Chocolate Chips Chocolate Chips
• 20 g Powdered Sugar Substitute (I used Swerve)
• 5g Sprinkles (optional, but recommended)

Instructions

1. In a small microwave-safe bowl, add your peanut butter and chocolate chips. Add to the microwave and microwave for 15 seconds at a time, stopping to stir to prevent burning. Continue until fully melted, about 1 minute or so.
2. If making the cake batter version, simply melt your white chocolate chips with the same method
3. In a large bowl, add your cereal. Pour the melted chocolate over the cereal, then use a silicone spatula (or spoon) to mix it all up and fully coat the cereal.
4. Add your powdered sugar (and cake mix if you are making the cake batter flavor) and shake it up well. My bowl has a lid so I am able to shake it up, but you can do it in Tupperware as well. If all else fails, you can just toss the mixture, but it's much easier to mix when you can do it furiously.
5. Note that you can certainly add more powdered sugar if wanted. A lot of puppy chow is completely covered to the point where it looks white, I just personally do not care for that much since this is already pretty sweet. But by all means feel free to add more!
6. Enjoy! These will keep well in an airtight container to enjoy throughout the week. I found the best results to be when stored in the fridge so the chocolate stays nice and solidified, but room temperature works as well (they're just a tad softer).

Notes

Nutrition for serving of cake batter puppy chow (recipe makes 4 servings):

• 150 Calories
• 7g Fat
• 23g Carbs
• 7g Protein

Nutrition Information

Yield 4 Serving Size 1/4 of Recipe
Amount Per Serving Calories 130Total Fat 8gCarbohydrates 11gFiber 3.5gSugar 0.5gProtein 8g

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