Candy Bones Recipe

If you like salty sweet snacks, you’ll love Candy Bones, a tasty combination of salty pretzels, sweet vanilla and the nutty flavor of oats.

Assemble the bones by sliding the one or two pieces of oat cereal onto both ends of the pretzel sticks. Snap some sticks in half to add variety.

To get the oat cereal onto the sticks, you'll have to finagle them. Whether you use Cheerios© or a generic brand, you'll find that the holes in the cereal are not uniform. Some will fit onto the pretzel sticks easily. Others you'll have to gently twist on.

Because bags of pretzels tend to have crushed pieces, I used six one-ounce boxes of small Bachman Pretzel Stix.

After assembling the bones, melt the candy melts.

Wilton offers advice on melting candy melts on its website, including directions for melting them in a slow cooker.

I used the double boiler method, setting a metal bowl filled with candy melts over water. After bringing the water to a simmer, I removed the double boiler from the heat and stirred the melts until they were smooth and creamy.

The video below shows a method for melting the candy coating in the microwave in a Pyrex© bowl.

Dip the bones into the melted candy, covering one half at a time.

Tap the bones against the side of the bowl to remove excess and place them on parchment paper or wax paper to harden.

When dry, dip the other half, tap and set out to dry.

Because the candy coating sets up quickly, this doesn't take long.

• Add an assortment of nuts to the prepared bones.
• Add chocolate chips.
• Substitute Fruit Loops for Cheerios.
• Coat Chex© cereal pieces with the candy coating and serve along with the coated pretzels as Broken Bones.

Candy Bones are easy to make and fun to serve. Set them out at parties in Halloween-themed bowls or small wooden coffins.

Use Candy Bones as decorations on cakes and cupcakes.

Tricked out in a Halloween candy box or bag, Candy Bones makes a nice hostess gift, too.

Photos by Jill Spencer