Cranberry-Orange Snack Mix

Chef Lanfear's Note:

This is an excellant snack mix for the holidays. We cook up several batches of this every year, package it up, and deliver it to friends and family. It's always a great hit. When cooking more than 2 batches at once I increase the bake time to 60 minutes to compensate for the loss of heat from opening the oven door repeatedly

• Total Time: 1 hrs 5 mins
• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Cook Time: 50 mins

Ingredients:

Serves: 14-16

Yield: 8.0 cups

• 2 cups Quaker Oatmeal Squares Cereal (Cinnamon or Brown Sugar)
• 2 cups Corn Chex
• 2 cups small pretzels
• 1 cup whole almond
• 2/3 cup dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1/3 cup orange juice concentrate, thawed
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar (packed)
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

Directions:

1. Preheat Oven to 250 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, combine cereals, pretzels, and almonds.
3. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and spices. Stir in melted butter and orange concentrate.
4. Pour sugar/butter mixture over cereal mixture and stir to coat evenly.
5. Pour mixture into a greased 13" x 9" baking pan and spread into an even layer.
6. Cook for 50 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.
7. Remove from oven and stir in dried Cranberries.
8. Cool completely.
9. Store in an airtight conatiner.

Reviews

[Muffin Goddess]

Made the house smell like fall while this was baking, and the end result tasted just as good as it smelled! I used pumpkin spice flavored almonds, and I didn't have any small pretzels, so I just broke up some larger thin pretzels instead. I also added the cranberries in with the cereal mixture, but only because I was trying to multitask and was afraid I would forget them at the end. Like Tinkerbell mentioned, they are actually pretty good with the orange and spice on them. Very good, thanks for posting! Made for PAC Spring 2012

[Sydney Mike]

Made a double batch of this, but since there are only 2 of us around here much of the time, I was more than happy to share some of it with a neighbor couple as well as with my son & DIL! This is definitely a winning snack treat, & great recipe keeper! The cranberry-&-orange flavor combo comes through loud & clear & is very satisfying! Thanks for sharing the recipe! [Made & reviewed for one of my adoptees in this Spring's round of Pick A Chef]

[**Tinkerbell**]

Umm... I looked up the word addiction and it said "Cranberry-Orange Snack Mix". lol Seriously, I love the flavor of this recipe. I didn't expect the orange juice to add much, but it is very noticeable and really contrasts nicely with the brown sugar and spices. I used the brown sugar flavored oatmeal squares cereal and mixed two flavors of dried cranberries; pomegranate juice infused and cherry juice infused. I doubled the recipe the first time out and I'm glad I did. It's not going to last long! My only warning to the next chef is to make sure you don't throw the cranberries into the bowl of cereals. I didn't realize I had done that until it was all in the oven (in both 11x15 and 13x9 baking dishes for the double batch) and I got to the stirring every 10 minutes. Basically, the cranberries came out a little candied, and I'm not gonna lie, they're quite good that way, but next time I'll do it right. ;) Thanks for sharing, Chef Lanfear! Made & enjoyed for the Spring 2012 Pick-A-Chef event.