Special shout out to Sprouts Farmers Market for sponsoring this post and helping keep this site/me moving/shaking/twisting.
It’s that time of year again, where all your favorite foods suddenly turn into the shape of a foot or a finger all for the sake of halloween. Well today we’re going to dip our non meatloaf toes in the water and celebrate with this salted maple snack mix (perfect for halloween parties) complete with dark chocolate covered almond and raisin spiders.
The mix itself is actually pretty straight forward and perfect for any party. It’s sweet with caramel notes from the maple syrup and salty with a nice pinch of kosher salt. There’s the usual snack mix suspects: pretzels, cereal, nuts, and a little twist with the oyster crackers; plain and dry before hand making them a perfect palette for the buttery maple bath they get to take in the oven.
Sprouts is actually the perfect partner for this because of how you can customize and purchase so many mix in options from their bulk dept. and grab the rest from the great selection of all natural and organic products they have lining the aisles.
And these spiders? All from the bulk dept. We’re building them with chocolate covered almonds, chocolate covered raisins, and dark chocolate to top any snack mix (or dessert or party tray) for your next party.
Salted Maple Snack Mix with Chocolate Spiders
Makes 10 cups
3 cup multigrain squares cereal
3 cups oyster crackers
3 cups mini twist pretzels
1 cup pumpkin seeds
½ cup + 1 Tbsp maple syrup
3 Tbsp. butter or coconut oil
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon coarse kosher salt
½ cup roughly chopped chocolate covered almonds
if making the chocolate spiders:
12 chocolate covered almonds
12 chocolate covered raisins
½ cup chopped chocolate (whatever chocolate is used for the almonds and raisins, I used dark)
Start by preheating your oven to 250ºF and lining a half sheet baking sheet with parchment.
Measure out the cereal, crackers, pretzels, and pumpkin seeds directly onto the prepared baking sheet.
In a small saucepan melt the butter then stir together with the maple syrup, butter or coconut oil, and cinnamon.
Evenly pour the maple syrup mixture over the ingredients on the baking sheet the carefully stir to evenly coat everything. Sprinkle the salt on and give everything one last mix. Place in the oven and bake for one hour, stirring every 15 minutes. After the hour, remove the mix and set aside to cool completely. Once cooled, stir in the chopped chocolate covered almonds. Store in an airtight container.
To make the Spiders: Print out 2 copies of this template and place them so they both fit on a half sheet sized baking sheet (there should be a little overlap of the paper) then lay a shoot of parchment over this. Melt the chocolate and pipe out legs onto parchment (I used a Wilton size 5 piping tip). If the chocolate seems a little too loose then set aside to cool for a few minutes with a toothpick in the tip to prevent any plugging up of the tip. When tracing out the legs make sure you over pipe on the length because the ends of each leg will probably be a little messy and you’ll want to clean them up. squeeze a tiny bit extra chocolate where the legs all meet and use an almond for the body and a raisin for the head, following the template placing example. Work one spider at a time tracing out the legs, then giving a little extra chocolate, and placing the body and head. Once all the spiders have been created set the trays aside until the chocolate has set then carefully lift the spiders off the try and trim the ends of the legs using a sharp paring knife. A little tip: if you’re looking for good looking legs it might help to double the spider recipe and make two trays, first one can help get the hang of it, and you can always chop those up and mix them into the cooled snack mix
