Pour cereal in large mixing bowl. (You need lots of room to incorporate the sticky mixture.) I like to take a mallet and crush some of the cereal flakes, not til powdery, more like in half. In sugar-free applications, it is very hard to get things sticky enough to hold together. Crushing the cereal slightly seemed to help the sticky mixture to incorporate better.
Melt honey and sugar on stove top or in microwave until just barely boiling. Stir constantly.
When boiling, mix in peanut butter for bar base. Combine thoroughly.
Remove from heat and pour over cereal.
Work with your hands if possible to be sure that sticky mixture is incorporated all throughout cereal. This will take a bit and will require a little more effort than traditional Scotcharoos.
In 9” x 13” pan lined with parchment and sprayed with cooking spray, press cereal mixture into pan. This also takes extra work. Press and press and press and press. Put zipper bags over hands or butter hands if needed. When you think you have the mixture well-pressed into pan, press some more. You can’t press too much!
Melt chocolate chips in double boiler or microwave. (See melting instructions in Chapter 5. Be careful with those expensive chocolate chips! :) )
Loosen peanut butter if it is too firm. (Do this separate from the chocolate chips.)
Stir peanut butter into chocolate chips until well mixed and shiny and smooth.
Spread melted chocolate mixture over pan thoroughly.
Refrigerate or freeze for a few minutes until well set. Don’t leave in too long as you don’t want them hard. You just want the topping to be somewhat firm so that they cut into nice bars.
Store on counter, refrigerator, or freezer.
Recipe by Donna Reish at https://donnareish.com/scotcharoos-sugar-free/