Print the recipe cards! homemade cereal honey bunches of oats
For this week’s posts I’m focusing on cold cereal! Yes, you can make it yourself! In today’s recipes we’re looking at the “how to” of two flaked cold cereals. Lo and behold the mystery is revealed! All you need to make them are simple ingredients found in your pantry… healthier and at a fraction of the price of boxed cereal. Your only problem will be in doubling (possibly quadrupling ?) them to make enough to keep up with how quickly they’re eaten!
Both of these recipes were adapted from recipes found in “A Bite of Independence Through Self Sufficiency”, the wonderful (sadly, out of print) book I mentioned in May 10th’s post a few weeks ago. I hope you enjoy them! It’s a great feeling to know you can “out price” and “out smart” the boxed cereals at the grocery store by making it yourself!
Wheat Flakes
Yield: 6 cups
Ingredients:
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp. salt
2 cups water
1/2 cup brown sugar
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Parchment paper (*optional, but so nice to have for this recipe)
Instructions:
Sift all ingredients well, especially the brown sugar. Mix ingredients with a spoon until they’re the consistency of thinned paint. Pour onto either a greased baking sheet or a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Tip the sheet or use a spatula to cover the surface with a film, pouring any excess back into the bowl. Bake at 350 about 15-20 minutes until crisp and golden. Pull off sheet and allow to cool before breaking into flakes. If there were areas that were too thick when cooked (they’ll feel a bit leathery after being cooled and won’t crisp into flakes), place back onto the baking sheet (bottom side up) and bake another 7-10 minutes. Allow to cool and break into flakes the same as before. Store cereal in an airtight container.
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The baking pans before going in to bake…
After baking, the parchment paper makes it really easy to pull off the baked portion to cool. Once cool, it’ll easily break into flakes so long as you haven’t poured it too thickly onto the pan. The darker areas in the picture below are where it easily broke into flakes, while the lighter parts (poured more thickly) needed to go back into the oven, bottom side up, to cook again.
Finished wheat flakes
These pieces go back into the oven (for about 10 minutes) to bake again…
All done! The result of this recipe yields about 6 cups of wheat flakes. Mmm…tasty!
“I Wanna Be like Honey Bunches of Oats” Cereal
(Oat Flakes with Oat Clusters and Fruit)
Yield: 10 cups
Ingredients:
Oat Flakes
2 cups Oat flour (put rolled or groat oats through your grain mill or high powered blender until finely ground)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 – 2 cups water
1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup each, whole wheat flour and tapioca flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. vanilla
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Oat Clusters
3 cups oats
1/3 cup oil (*I used a light flavored olive oil)
3/4 cup wheat germ
3 TBS honey
1/3 cup water
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2 cups freeze dried fruit of your choice
chopped nuts (if desired)
parchment paper
Instructions:
Making the Oat Flakes
Begin again by making sure your dry ingredients have been well sifted. Follow the same procedure as for the wheat flakes. Due to the fine texture of the oat flour you may have to play with the amount of water necessary. Your goal is to have an almost syrup-like consistency. Pour or spread thinly on the baking sheet and bake at 350 for about 15 minutes. Pull off sheet to cool before breaking into flakes.
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The consistency you want…
Ready to go into the oven…
After baking and cooling, the oat flakes (thanks to the fine oat flour) are easier to break into flakes than the wheat flakes. Hardly any had to go back in for a second round in the oven.
Making the Oat Clusters
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Grease a baking sheet. Toss the oats with the water, oil wheat germ and honey. Form small clusters of the mixture on the baking sheet and bake until crisp, turning half way through, about 20 minutes.
Finishing the Cereal
After baking, combine with Oat Flakes…
Mix together about 1/3 cup honey and enough water to be able to spritz through a spray bottle. Spritz the honey mixture onto the cereal and bake at 300 for 5 minutes. Pull the cereal out of the oven, turn with a large spoon, spritz again and bake for another 5 minutes. Repeat until all the honey has been used.
Add to the finished cereal freeze dried or dehydrated fruit of your choice as well as chopped nuts if wanted. Enjoy!
Store your homemade cereal in an airtight container. This recipe makes a little more than 10 cups.
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Notes:
- 4/13 update: For anyone interested, I’m adding a similar recipe I recently found. I havn’t tried this one yet myself…please comment if you try it and tell us what you think! Here’s the link: http://chickensintheroad.com/cooking/making-your-own-cereal-mixes/
Hey I tried making these and they were WAY too thick. I tried adding more and more water and they just were never the right thin-ness. Any ideas?
Thanks for the comment. I’m planning on reviewing and re-posting this recipe this month since there have been others who have mentioned problems with it too. When I make it again I’m thinking of making a video to help. I’m so sorry it didn’t turn out for you!
Loving the idea, since cold cereal is great for getting 5 kids a quick healthy breakfast. I tried it this morning but tweaked it because I only had white flour. I mixed a small amount of oat flour and coconut flour with the white for flavor. But it didn’t turn out. It stuck to the parchment paper and wouldn’t separate. I will try the recipe soon just as it is and comment again. Some things just shouldn’t be altered, I guess. Thanks for the post.
[…] Homemade Cold Cereal: Flaked Cereal […]
not sure what i’ve done wrong but the consistency thickens and gets clumpy after the 2nd batch, adding water doesn’t help.
I don’t know what to say, I’ve never had that happen before. I’ll make a batch up this week exactly as it’s written here just to double check that I didn’t miss something in writing it all up. If I did, I’ll leave another comment for you. Thanks.
[…] breakfast cereals that mimic boxed varieties (See examples here and […]
This recipe was pretty simple for doing it the first time. Now that I know what I’m doing I will make a larger batch next time! I used maple syrup and added raisins.
[…] Homemade Cold Cereal: Two Flakey Varieties Homemade flaked cereal isn’t hard to do and it’s a great one to get kids busy […]
Thank you so much! I think I will try it out, and if it doesn’t turn out well then I learned something! and I will message you about the results!
would it be possible for me to use white flour instead of whole wheat flour ( its for the recipe wheat flakes)?
I’m sure it would work, although I’m having a hard time determining in my mind what it would taste like. The imagined mixture makes me think back to the white flour and water paste I used mix up as a little girl, so I’m kind of blocked knowing what to think. My husband (sorry, I hope you don’t mind if I consulted here) thinks it would turn out possibly like corn flakes (??)– which makes me think– I need to try this out with corn masa flour. Back with the white flour though, I’d love to hear what happens if you try it!
I’ve made the oat recipe twice now and we love it! Thank you so much!!
Awesome! I’m so glad you’ve liked it! Thanks for coming back to tell me!
You have no idea how awesome this was for me to find. Not only am I questing to eliminate packaged/processed/preservative-laden foods, but I now have a honey allergy and miss honey bunches of oats terribly. I plan to make your recipe using agave nectar (works the same in recipes as honey, and similar in flavor) and I can have my favorite cereal again.
That’s so great to hear, thanks for dropping the note! And you’ll have fun customizing it to your personal preference. One thing to consider with the agave is that it’s sweeter than honey so you won’t want to substitute it exactly 1:1, you’ll probably need less — which is good since it’s more expensive. I’m so glad you found the recipe!
Oh I am so going to try this! Thanks so much. 🙂
Am thinking the wheat cereal would be good with the addition of cocoa too. My son is a cocoa cereal freak 🙂 Thanks for the recipes!
What a fun idea! My husband would love that — if you try it before I do let us all know how it goes!
Ok this is straight up awesome. Period. I am SO putting this in my plan! Maybe this summer I’ll get the kids making this.
Oh yeah, it’s a great one to let kids make, it’ll keep them busy for a long time and they’ll get to customize their own special breakfast cereals. Have fun with it! 🙂
Great post! I’ve been looking for a home made flaky cold cereal, and so far I haven’t found much. I did find a nice popcorn cereal, but the other one I found required 2 days to make. Can’t say I’ve mustered up the gumption to try that yet. 🙂 This looks lots simpler and flakier. Just what I was looking for. Thank you! Thank you!
Awesome! You’re welcome! Wow, 2 days? I wouldn’t do that either. I’d love to see what you found as a popcorn cereal — the two other cereals I’ll be posting tomorrow are pressed cereals, I haven’t found a reasonable one that’s popped, sounds interesting!
The 2 days ones really are not very difficult (or expensive if you end up not liking the result). However, I found it to be rather lacking in flavor. Basically like eating grape nuts – which are ok, but not good enough for me to toss my boxed cereals!
You might like it better by tweeking the sweetner at the end to your taste. There are endless flavoring combinations you could come up with by adding a drop or two of flavoring oils (like LorAnn) — buttered english toffee or cinnamon roll both would be great if you ask me . For me it’s a recipe that 1) uses up and rotates basics 2) is fun to play around with different combinations.