How To Customize Rice Krispies Treats With Your Favorite Cake Mix

Rice Krispies treats are the perfect sweet treat to have as an afternoon snack or as a light dessert after dinner — but have you ever wished they had more of a cakey consistency? If your answer is yes, then you'll be happy to know that there's an easy way to make this happen: add cake mix to your Rice Krispies treats mixture when baking.

Start by picking out your favorite type of cake mix — any flavor will do. To keep it simple, you can always go for something like vanilla or yellow cake, or use chocolate cake mix if you always preferred chocolate Rice Krispies treats as a kid. Red velvet cake or strawberry cake will also make for fun, tasty flavors.

Next, gather the ingredients for Tasting Table's homemade jazzed-up Rice Krispies treats. Begin by following the directions as normal. After melting the butter with the marshmallows, add ¾ cup of cake mix along with the Rice Krispies. All you need is the cake mix on its own; ignore the other instructions on the box that may say to add water, oil, or eggs. From there, bake the Rice Krispies treats according to the instructions. When they come out of the oven, you'll have an upgraded version of the classic dessert that has a cake batter-like taste to them.

Of course, the first way to customize the cakey Rice Krispies treats is to pick out your favorite flavor of cake mix, but the creative customizing doesn't stop there. For example, you can swap out some of the Rice Krispies for another cereal: Fruity Pebbles. This swap will bring some bright color to the treats while also bringing in some subtle fruitiness. This idea works especially well with a Funfetti cake mix, which already has some bright colors from the integrated sprinkles. If you don't want to add Fruity Pebbles, you can always add extra sprinkles to go along with the Funfetti's sprinkles.

If you go with chocolate cake mix and want to make it extra chocolatey, you can even add some chocolate chips into the mix. In fact, the chocolate chip addition will work with plenty of cake flavors — vanilla, strawberry, red velvet, and so on. Similarly, you can spread melted chocolate on the exterior of any of these Rice Krispies treat flavors, like we do in our jazzed-up Rice Krispies treat recipe. Or you can replace the melted chocolate with some type of frosting for a sweeter addition — perhaps classic vanilla buttercream or, for something nuttier, creamy peanut butter frosting. Vanilla buttercream would pair well with flavors like strawberry and red velvet cake, while peanut butter frosting would make a good match with chocolate or vanilla cake.