I was getting ready to go to the supermarket today, and I decided I wanted cereal for breakfast this week. Then I thought to myself, why have I never made my own cereal? I've made granola before, but that's as far as I ever got. So, I took to Google, and found myself a recipe for a non-granola cereal: bran flakes!
I used
this recipe, more or less. I accidentally bought a bit more bran than I needed, so I made 1.5x the original recipe, and I didn't want to buy another kind of flour so I made them more oat-y than nutty.
3/4 cup bran
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oat flour (I think it'd be good with any flour)
3 tablespoons turbinado sugar (I bought this for another recipe a long time ago, and I'm slowly working my way through the box)
1/3 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk (I used hemp milk)
1/3 cup water
Mix all the dry ingredients, then add the two wet ingredients & mix it all together. Because I made 1.5x the recipe, I should've done this in 3 batches; I didn't realize that until just now, but that's why my flakes ended up so thick. If you're following the original recipe, take half the dough (1/3 of the dough if you're following this recipe) & put it on a cookie sheet sized piece of parchment paper. Put a piece of plastic wrap over it & roll it out really thin. The original recipe says to make it super thin, and I'd agree with it that it'd be best super thin. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes, or until the edges start to get a little crispy but the middle's still leathery. Take it out, set it aside to cool, and do the same thing with the other half (or the other two thirds).
This is the part where I started assembling the granola, but I'll give details on that below.
Once the first sheet's cooled, rip it up into pieces that are however big you want your flakes to be. They don't shrink much more at this point. You could probably just cut it into squares if you wanted to do this a little faster, though your flakes would look less pretty then. Spread the flakes out on the cookie sheet + parchment paper, then bake at 275 until they're crispy, stirring every 5 minutes or so. Because I made mine thick, this part took more than 20 minutes. Take them out, let them cool, then store in an airtight container.
I decided to mix the flakes with some granola. This is probably the best granola I've ever made, and probably among the best I've ever had, and it's super easy.
Based off of
this recipe, which is on a site full of breakfast food recipes that I'll have to explore more in the future. I halved the recipe because I only wanted enough granola (a) for me and (b) to go with the flakes.
1 1/4 cups old fashioned oats
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla (I almost always double the vanilla in recipes these days, so this is double what it calls for)
1/8 to 1/4 cup raisins (I forgot to add these, but I was planning on using a mix of raisins & dates)
Mix together all the dry ingredients except the raisins. Mix together the 3 wet ingredients, then mix those two mixtures together. Spread out, breaking the big clumps up into granola-sized pieces, on a parchment papered baking sheet (I reused the parchment paper from the flakes), bake at 325 for 15 minutes, flip the granola over, and bake for another 15 minutes. If you're using raisins/fruit, toss those in here & bake for an extra 3 minutes. Take it out, let it cool, and store it in your airtight container. Super tasty, clumps perfectly, stays together, has a great texture... seriously, it's delicious granola. The site says you can sub out any fruit or nuts, so I'll probably experiment with it some more in the future.
Breakfast is gonna be delicious tomorrow.
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| I made two sheets of this many thick 'n' tasty bran flakes |
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| The only sheet of granola -- I already ate a few pieces before I took out the camera... |
