Pumpkin Cinnamon Rice Crispy Treats

I know, right?  More rice crispy treats?? Well, I purchased gluten-free brown rice cereal and I realized it is way more fun and tasty to create a bar out of it than eat it blandly in a bowl.

Check out my previous post if you still don't care much for pumpkin: it is so good for you!  So is cinnamon, for that matter.  This recipe is easy, tasty and sneakily healthy, like so many of my "desserts" are.  While my husband pointed out that I haven't had a real rice crispy treat in years and that they cannot truly compare, I disagree.  Because these rice crispy treats taste great and yet still provide nutrition through healthy ingredients to fuel you on your day or workout, they win over a traditional buttery marshmallow dessert, hands-down.  Plus they are gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, nut-free and corn-free for those of us with extreme sensitivities.  Perhaps best of all, they are very fast and simple to make.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rice Crispy Treats

Ingredients:
1/3 cup sunflower seed butter or almond butter
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup pumpkin puree
2 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon Red Ape cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon lucuma powder* optional
sprinkle of sea salt
3-1/2 cup brown rice cereal (I used Erewhon for this recipe)

Directions:

1.  Heat seed butter, honey, pumpkin and water together in a saucepan over medium heat.  Remove from heat after it bubbles and gets pretty liquid-y.  Stir in vanilla, then cinnamon and lucuma.

2.  Pour over brown rice cereal, then pack mixture into a lined or greased 8" pan.  Freeze 15 minutes to firm up before cutting and serving.

Why add lucuma powder?  You can reduce sugar or sweeteners in recipes by adding lucuma.  Lucuma is a great natural sweetener.  If you add lucuma to this recipe, you can even increase it to 1 teaspoon and reduce the honey to 3 to 4 tablespoons. Lucuma is a dry and starchy fruit native to Peru, and has a low glycemic index despite its sweet taste, and it has high amounts of beta-carotene, iron and vitamin B3.

By the way, most of these ingredients are found on Vitacost.com; they have tons of organic ingredients and ship in one day, which is hard to beat.  If you sign up through this link, you'll receive a $10 off coupon, and when you're order ships, I'll get a $10 coupon too--it's a win-win for both of us, and I'll have a reason to buy even more delicious organic ingredients to play with.