2019 Updates: Since publishing this recipe, I’ve made a few tweaks. I’ve increased the Cheeto quantity (a frequent request), slightly reduced the pretzel quantity, and learned how to gently speed up roasting time. I’ve also received questions about what a “big” bottle of Worcestershire sauce is, so I’ve tried to clarify below. Amusingly, I just received a gift of a very old Merry Mix recipe card my father once gave to my brother. I can tell it’s old because it uses only one kind of Chex, no Cheez-Its, only 3/4 cup butter, and a paltry 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce (gasp!). Also, all the seasonings were salts (celery salt, garlic salt, etc.). I’ve verified with Papa that he makes his Merry Mix the way I describe below now, and it’s how I’ve been making it for years. What can I say? Never stop improving.
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As far back as I can remember, my Papa involved me in cooking projects. He’d arm me with a paring knife so I could help prep, or he’d drag a chair to the stove so I could stir. I loved squishing meatball mixture through my tiny, chubby fingers. I got really good at pleating gyoza. One of the all-time favorite recipes we made as a family was Merry Mix.
He’d pull out the enormous, commercial-kitchen-size stainless-steel mixing bowl and plunk it on the table. (When I say this bowl was enormous, please understand I could sit in it and sled down a hill. And I did. We had to take all the racks out of our oven and bake it with the door slightly ajar because it scarcely fit.) I’d open all the bags and boxes and dump everything in, mixing gently with my hands.
Papa always claimed Merry Mix was “an old Moore family recipe,” but I know he’s modified it over the years. I think his original recipe was inspired by a Nalley’s snack mix from his youth. In the ’80s, we sometimes included Bugles. My brother, Matthew, has had good success experimenting with new ingredients, including one notable version using wasabi peas. I tend to make it with the same ingredients every year, just as we did in that giant steel bowl when I was really little, but I have some suggested modifications down below in the notes.
Oh, and don’t make the mistake of calling this Chex Mix. The “Official” (barf) “Original” (lies) Chex Mix recipe from General Mills doesn’t call for nearly enough flavoring agents and it leaves you with half a dozen partially eaten boxes of cereal and snacks (hisssss). Merry Mix completely eliminates the waste and most of the measurement required in the corporate-sanctioned recipe. It goes like this:
- Use the whole box/bag of each component. Why have leftovers?
- Use a whole pound of butter (melted). Yeah. Four sticks.
- Use a whole bottle of Worcestershire sauce (the biggest bottle you can find)—maybe even more—because it’s delicious.
- Use plenty of seasonings (granulated garlic, granulated onion, celery seed, paprika—optionally, seasoned salt of your choosing).
- Bake on low heat (250ºF) until even the most saturated pieces are crispy and dry.
- Approximately every 30 minutes while the Merry Mix bakes, gently fold the mixture with a wide, flat spatula, coming in from the edge of the baking dish to avoid breakage. This accelerates the drying process and prevents burning at the edges.
Yes, it takes forever. Yes, your house will smell absolutely amazing. Yes, the yield is a little more than three gallons. Yes, you may have to use multiple baking dishes to contain all of the magic. It’s worth it.
The recipe can easily be modified to be gluten-free (leave out any ingredients that contain wheat—Wheat Chex, pretzels, Cheez-Its, some brands of Worcestershire).
In my house, Merry Mix is a Christmas necessity. Merry Mix is a great thing to make in the fall/winter when houseguests are plentiful, but it also makes a killer road trip snack in the summer. I hope you’ll give Merry Mix a try (please tell me if you do!). You won’t regret it.
Merry Mix
Active time: 15 minutes | Total time: 3 to 8 hours | Yield: ~3.5 gallons
Ingredients
One normal-size box Rice Chex
One normal-size. box Corn Chex
One normal-size box Wheat Chex (omit for gluten-free mix)
One normal-size box Cheerios
Two normal-size bags Crunchy Cheetos (if desired, try swapping one bag with Flamin’ Hot)
Approx. 14 oz. pretzel sticks (see note below if using gluten-free pretzels)
One normal-size box Cheez-Its (omit for gluten-free mix)
One canister Spanish peanuts (red-skinned)
1 lb. salted butter
10 to 15 oz. Worcestershire sauce (you cannot go wrong increasing this amount)
1 TBSP. granulated garlic
1 TBSP. granulated onion
2 to 3 tsp. ground celery seed
2 tsp. paprika
Seasoned salt (such as Lawry’s or Johnny’s), to taste, if needed
Instructions
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- Preheat oven to 250ºF. Toss all cereals and snacks into a very large vessel or two for mixing. (Those aluminum foil roasting pans from the grocery store work well.) Using your hands, toss gently to combine.
- Melt butter. Stir the dry spices together in a small dish.
- In three to four additions, top mixture with the melted butter, several liberal glugs of Worcestershire, and a generous pinch of the spices, stirring gently to combine between additions. Continue until you run out of wet ingredients and spices. Taste, and if it needs more of any of the spices, sprinkle a bit extra on or add some seasoned salt (Worcestershire sauce varies in saltiness, as will your dry ingredients).
- Spread the now-wet mixture into as many baking vessels as your oven will hold. A shallower vessel (such as a baking sheet) roasts much faster than a deep vessel (such as a roasting pan). The downsides of using shallow vessels is you’ll need to stir more frequently to avoid burning, and folding the mixture can be precarious. These days, I’m doing a half-batch of Merry Mix at a time and that fits on two half-sheet pans (rimmed baking sheets).
- Bake in oven, folding gently with a wide spatula to bring the wetter ingredients at the bottom of the pan up to the top every 30 minutes. Merry Mix is done when all pieces are dry and crisp, which will take less time in shallow dishes than it does with deep ones. A half batch baked on two baking sheets takes about three hours. A full batch in roasting pans could take as long as eight hours. You’ll have to taste some of the most well-saturated pieces to be sure. Note that one pan may finish faster than the other. Allow to cool completely, then store in gallon-sized zip-top bags.
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Notes:
- Optional mix-ins: Crispix cereal, mixed nuts, Goldfish or Bunnies crackers, pretzel Goldfish or teeeeeny twists in place of pretzel sticks, wasabi peas, sesame sticks, broken pita or bagel chips, Fritos, Bugles, red pepper hot sauce (such as Frank’s Red Hot). If you add a bunch of extra stuff, think about leaving something else out to compensate (or increasing the butter/Worcestershire/seasonings and loving your life).
- Gluten-free modifications: Omit all ingredients that contain wheat and check your Worcestershire sauce) and consider increasing other Chex quantity (or adding other mix-ins) to compensate for loss of bulk. If substituting with GF pretzels, wait to add them until after the mix has baked and cooled. I’ve read that, due to their composition, GF pretzels do not hydrate and crisp up again the same way traditional pretzels do.
- What’s a box/bag/bottle/canister?: I didn’t note a size for the cereal boxes, Cheetos bags, or even peanuts canister. That’s because sizes vary within stores, brands, and regions. The goal here is ease and the recipe is flexible. In general, if you have a choice, use the “normal” box for all the cereals, not the giant “family size” boxes. For the Worcestershire sauce, that’s personal preference. I like to use the largest bottle that Lea & Perrins makes (which in my area is 15 ounces), but sometimes I can’t find it so I use one-and-a-half 10-ounce bottles. I’ve used smaller bottles before from all sorts of other brands (like Whole Foods’ 365 or Annie’s or Kroger’s) and the Merry Mix has come out fine. If you dig Worcestershire like I do, get the bigger bottle (or a couple of littler ones).
- Think of your vegetarian friends: Some Worcestershire sauce, such as Lea & Perrins, is not vegetarian because it contains anchovies. If you’re feeding any vegetarians, use an appropriate bottle of Worcestershire sauce so they can partake (or at least warn them so they can make an informed choice). Many inexpensive grocery-store house brands are vegetarian.
Last year, I asked my food-loving friend Lauren if she’d like to undertake a culinary project with me. When I was small, my family made big-batch gifts all the time—jars and jars of homemade pickles or jam, preserved bounty from our garden, etc.—and often my Papa and Dede make ambitious trios for Christmas presents. One year: chili oil, Worcestershire sauce, raspberry vinegar. Another year: chili powder (Papa smoked the chiles), Herbes de Provence (Dede picked and dried the lavender), curry powder (Papa toasted and ground all the spices). Clearly, this is in my blood, but I live in New York City. Storage space is tight and I live far from at least half the intended recipients. A food gift seemed unmanageable.
Still, the idea of covering all my gifting bases with one project stuck in my craw until I saw a blog post that showed a small child making vanilla extract. You guys, a child. I think we can all agree: I’m not going to be outdone by a four-year-old. Extract is a fantastic project to start out with. It is extremely quick, requires no specialty tools, can be done by small hands (see this blog post to see Annelise, my 4.5-year-old motivator, helping her mom—but don’t store your stash in the window!), requires almost no cleanup, and results in a gift nearly everyone can use in a variety of ways. What’s not to love about vanilla extract? Commercial extract is made by soaking chopped-up vanilla beans in liquid that is at least 35% ABV (usually ethanol). However, sweeteners and colorants are often added, and the quality of the beans is not regulated. Blech. With this project, I could guarantee my friends were getting a quality pantry staple that would make their treats delicious all year long. Even better, when you’ve used about half the bottle, you can add more booze, give it a good shake, and your beans will keep flavoring the extract. It’s like the gift that keeps on giving! Did I mention it was pretty inexpensive? The cost per bottle drops as you make a larger quantity, and if you’re not mailing anything, it’s downright cheap.
Lauren and I set up a date about a month before Christmas (more on that in a minute); in the meantime, I ordered the beans and bottles and whipped up a package design. After quick trips to pick up the booze and buy sticky labels, we were in business. I’d already run all our bottles through the dishwasher to sterilize them, so all we had to do to make the extract is cut up a couple of beans, shove ’em in the bottles, cover them with booze, give ’em a shake, and let ’em sit. That’s it. Really. It took longer to stick our labels on the bottles and tie on the little hang-tags than it did to actually make the goods.
Once you’ve got the bottles sealed, you should shake them every couple of days and let them sit in a cool, dark place for 2 months (I stashed mine in a cardboard box in my closet). Since we’d started a bit late, we just put tags on the bottles that explained both the “don’t use me until” info as well as the “how to replenish the bottle” tip. It worked perfectly! In January, I started getting text messages and emails from friends, saying, “Using the vanilla tonight in some cookies!” Just the other day at work, my executive editor mentioned she’s still enjoying her bottle. I use mine all the time, and every time I do, I get a little flutter of pride that I made it. You, too, can have this distinct pleasure. Even beyond the holidays, it’s great to have a few bottles of extract sitting around so I can give them as impromptu gifts, so I’d recommend tripling the recipe below (at the very least: Lauren and I made 40 bottles). Won’t you give it a try?
Homemade Vanilla Extract
Active time: 10 minutes | Total time: 2 months + 10 minutes | Makes: 8 ounces
Ingredients
4 vanilla beans
8 ounces vodka or Bourbon
Instructions
- Sterilize an 8-ounce glass canning jar and lid (or two 4-ounce glass bottles) by boiling in a large pot of hot water for 10 minutes or running through your dishwasher with the hot-dry setting [see update].
- With a sharp knife, split each vanilla bean lengthwise, trying not to cut all the way through. If you’re using short bottles, cut each bean in half to fit.
- Stuff beans into jar or divide among bottles (the typical recipe is 2 beans per 8 ounces of booze, but I like to make double-concentrated vanilla).
- With a funnel or a small measuring cup, add vodka, making sure to cover beans. Seal jar or bottles. Shake vigorously and let sit in a cool, dark place for 2 months, shaking briefly but vigorously every few days.
Notes:
- This recipe can be made in multiples, no problem. We made 40 bottles at once! Just do some basic math to sort out your ingredients. For 40 4-ounce bottles, we bought a 1-pound bag of beans and 4.5 liters of vodka. Note that your number of beans may vary, as produce never weighs the same, universally, due to size, water content, etc. For me, we got about 80 beans in a one-pound bag. You may find you get more/less depending on the variety of beans you buy, the supplier, etc.
- Some people make the vanilla in one big canning jar (say, a quart or larger) and then, once the beans have released all their delicious flavor after 2 months, they transfer it to smaller bottles for gifting. This works fine, but it means your recipients can’t make more vanilla in their own bottles. You, however, can make another batch using those beans that are still in your big jar. You must do what you think is right, of course.
- If you take your time to make your vanilla, just include a note on the bottle saying when it’ll be ready to use!
- UPDATE: My awesome friend Dora just made vanilla based on this post. The lids on her bottle caps had paper liners inside and when she washed the lids, the paper began to peel. She boiled the lids extra long so she could peel out all the paper and glue. I did not sterilize my lids, I think, because I did not encounter this. The paper liners in some tiny bottle lids help them stay watertight, so if you have paper lids in yours you may want to just rinse them briefly and trust they’re clean, since they came from the manufacturer. Sterilize canning jar lids and others without paper liners in the normal way.
Bottles: Amber Boston Round (4 oz.) with Standard Cap from Specialty Bottle
Beans: Madagascar Vanilla Beans from Beanilla
Booze: Vodka, though Bourbon also works well. Note that vodka bakes off cleanly, whereas Bourbon leaves behind its own flavor footprint in your baked good, delicious in its own right. It’s best to avoid the crappiest vodka, but you don’t need to go crazy. We bought Wódka Vodka, which is generally well-reviewed and has a great price point.
Labels: We used these 2.5″ round kraft labels from Avery (22808), but you can use anything you like. One note is that printing them on a photocopier or with a laser printer is better than using an inkjet, because inkjet stickers will bleed if grabbed with wet hands.
A note about shipping: It is illegal to mail alcohol through the USPS. I’m definitely not telling you to do it. But if you mail yours through other carriers (or just break the law), make sure you wrap your vanilla in several layers of bubble wrap and they should survive the trip without worry. These 4x4x6 corrugated boxes from Uline fit those 4-ounce bottles perfectly, once I’d bundled them in several layers of small bubble wrap.
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