Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day, and nothing is better than a healthy start! I personalize our simple bran cereals with freeze dried raspberries, strawberries and bananas to give it a crunchier, fruitier flavor. After reading the ingredients and realizing that all branded flake cereals have too much sugar — and none of the new healthier grains and nuts such as quinoa, linseed and more — I decided to make my own breakfast cereal with more grains and less sugar.
After a trip to a health food store to purchase a selection puffed grains, toasted bran flakes, nuts and freeze-dried fruit, I added some nuts and raisins and came up with my own!
Maddy’s Quinoa, Spelt, Fruity Cold Breakfast Cereal
I’m still refining quantities of each to my taste and please do the same for yours!
Grains
1 Cup Spelt Puffs
1 Cups Puffed Quinoa
1 Cup puffed brown rice
1 Cup puffed buckwheat
4 Cups toasted bran flakes — The puffs above are small and dissolve quickly with milk, so make 1/2 of cereal toasted bran flakes to retain crunchiness. But it’s completely up to your personal taste!
Nuts:
2 Cups Pumpkin Seeds (I love them!)
1 Cup Sunflower Seeds
1 Cup Linseed
Your Preferred Freeze-Dried, Fresh or Dried Fruit:
Dried Pomegranate seeds (just discovered them – crunchy and delicious!)
Freeze Dried apple cubes
Freeze dried strawberry and raspberry powder
1 Cup raisins and other dried fruits to taste
Sugar to taste: (I didn’t add any to mine)
As I was researching cereals, I found several recipes for your own home made bran flakes. Can’t wait to make my own next. Here’s an easy recipe I found if you want to bake them as well.
Easy Home Made Flakes:
Thank you Mr. Breakfast
Yields: about 12 servings
Ingredients:
4 cups bran
4 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/3 cup almond flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cup milk
1 cup water
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Sift all of the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Add milk and water and stir well.
You’ll have a very wet paste type mixture. Use silicon sheets or parchment paper for your baking sheets. Grab 1/4 of the ‘glop’ into a sheet and flatten by hand. Put a silicon sheet or cling film over it. Use a rolling pin to flatten into a very thing sheet.
Remove the top plastic and carefully transfer to the baking sheet (retain the silicon sheet or parchment underneath).
Cook for about 10 minutes, checking frequently that it doesn’t burn. Result is an enormous cracker, crunchy on the edges. After all has baked a first time, lower the oven temperature to 275 degrees. Tear the first, cooled bran flake into regular bran flake-sized pieces (about 3/4 of an inch), and spread on the parchment-covered baking sheet. Bake for another 20 minutes, flipping and stirring the flakes around every 5 minutes.
Cool completely and store in sealed containers.
The result was a lot more cereal than expected, so I’ve started offering it to friends and guests!
