Print the recipe card! homemade oatmeal squares cereal
After trials and bumps along the way this cereal recipe is finally ready to share! Launched from a cold cereal recipe given in “A Bite of Independance Through Self Sufficiency” it uses wheat starch as a binder, an ingredient I’d never known is used in making cereals. I’m excited to have another option in my breakfast plan as well as something the kids can enjoy nibbling on as a snack! I hope you enjoy it too!
makes 20 cups (the equivalent of 3 boxes of cereal)
Ingredients:
8 cups oat flour (grind either rolled oats or oat groats into flour)
1 cup barley flour (grind barley through a mill on fine grind)
1 cup brown sugar
4 TBS baking powder
4 tsp. baking soda
2 TBS + 2 tsp. malt powder
2 tsp. salt
2 cups powdered wheat starch (cooked with 1 cup water to a thick paste) *see note for where to buy
1 cup honey
1/4 cup molasses
3/4 cup water
3/4 – 1 cup whole wheat flour (plus more to use in rolling out the dough)
Instructions:
Mix first seven dry ingredients together. In a saucepan cook wheat starch and water on low heat until mixture becomes a thick paste. Add to the dry mixture along with honey, molasses, water and whole wheat flour. The dough should be stiff but not dry. Cover the remaining dough in the bowl while working so it doesn’t dry out.
Roll dough out onto a lightly floured surface and trim using a pizza cutter into large squares. Using a metal spatula, remove dough squares to a baking pan. Working with a second baking tray, cut the squares into 1/4 in. strips of dough and place alternate cut strips to the second baking tray to allow space between strips in baking. Cut the strips into squares and bake at 325 for 8-10 minutes (until cooked but not overly browned). Allow to cool, break into squares where needed and enjoy.
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cooking the wheat starch…
Add just enough flour (somewhere between 3/4 – 1 cup) so that the dough is stiff but not dry.
The dough ready to roll…
Rolling out the dough
Roll to about 1/8 ” thickness…
Place rolled dough onto baking tray and cut into 1/4″ – 1/2″ strips, removing alternate strips to a second baking tray to make space for baking.
Ready to bake…
Bake for 8-10 minutes until cooked but not overly brown (they’ll be too hard if over cooked). Break apart where needed after cooling and enjoy!
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Notes:
- For those who can’t have wheat, I’d think either tapioca starch or corn starch could be tried out in place of the wheat starch while also substituting out a different flour than the 3/4 cup whole wheat. If you try this please leave a comment to let us know if it works! (*see the comments for some better ideas and information on this)
- I really had to chase around to find the wheat starch. I shopped Asian grocery stores, high end grocery stores, health food stores, all without success. I finally found it (sold in 50 lb sacks) through Honeyville Grain. There was one other online distributor I found, but I decided if I was going to pay for shipping I’d rather go with the larger quantity. Besides that, Honeyville charges just $5.00 for shipping no matter what so to me it made more sense. Now I have more than enough wheat starch (50 lbs, a crazy amount!) ready to use.
- I like that with that with how much cereal this recipe makes I won’t have to worry about it disappearing the very same day it’s made! With 20 cups, the equivalent of 3 boxes of cereal, there’s plenty for everyone to have more than a couple bowls
That is so amazing! I am SO trying this! How long would you say this would last after it’s all made up and in an air tight container?
I’d say at least a couple weeks if not more. They’re very similar to graham crackers (and other crackers), having been made from a dough and then baked. So as long as they’ve been baked (so they’re not moist) they’ll last a while.
Oatmeal Squares is my favorite cereal but it is so expensive that I don’t buy it. I can’t wait to try this recipe!!! It’s so funny that I look around for ingredients sometimes and I always seem to find it at Honeyville too. I love that store!! Thanks for the recipe!!!
Enjoy it! In comparing the two cereals, just fyi, there’s going to be a difference in texture. As it is they taste the same but instead of being crisp they’re chewy. If I could have gotten the dough to a consistency to put it through the pasta machine to get a thinner press I think I could have simulated the “woven” crisp effect of the oatmeal squares. Maybe one of these days someone will figure it out but after multiple trials this is the one I’m settling on for now.
Hmmm… methinks this may be another task for the dough docker
Oh, I LOVE that idea! That might just do it. I’ll try it and see!
For this recipe, I think replacing the wheat flour with 1/2 almond flour (freshly ground blanched almonds) and 1/2 millet flour would work the best flavorwise.
If you’re (wheat) gluten intolerant, there is really no need to replace the wheat starch in this recipe with anything, since it is already gluten-free… it’s actually the starch that is washed out of wheat when you make wheat gluten (wheat meat).
Although if you’re having trouble finding wheat starch or are actually allergic to wheat (not just gluten intolerant), the easier to find corn or potato starch should work just fine, as would tapioca or rice starch, although they don’t come out quite as velvety smooth.
Be advised that barley flour is not gluten-free, so someone with Celiac’s still can’t use it, but it does work for most people who are specifically allergic/intolerant to *wheat* gluten . The two proteins are just different enough not to trigger the reaction in most cases.
Unfortunately, I’m without an oven at the moment or I’d actually test out a no/low gluten version of this recipe
Good info — you’d be the one to know. I checked up on the wheat starch and got mixed answers, some said it was okay and others said no. Great idea on the almond/millet flour, for taste, even for us who don’t have a problem with wheat!
Like any product made on equipment that processes allergens, you can’t ever be entirely sure that you’ve removed every micron so it’s better to be cautious (esp. with Celiac’s).
If you’re just wheat gluten intolerant, the level of gluten remaining in the starch is probably well within tolerable limits; but if you’re actually allergic to wheat then you should probably steer clear; and I wouldn’t mess around with even a gnat’s hair of a chance of any gluten getting anywhere near my food if I had Celiac’s. I’ve known two folks with full-blown Celiac’s and it scares the *bleep* out of me (no pun intended).
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Now you’re speaking my language! Homemade cold cereal… Hooray ! And about the wheat starch … I happen to live half a mile from a Honeyville distribution center! But 50 lbs… I’d have to find other recipes to use it for too.
So here’s the real challenge… Can you replicate other cereals? Like Trix, Fruit Loops, Cocoa Puffs, Captain Cavity…. ?
Yeah, yeah, you UT people get all the breaks
It’s probably better though, if I lived a half mile from Honeyville I’d probably buy too much anyway. You should stop by and ask them if they have wheat starch for locals to buy in smaller amounts, maybe they do.
I think in making Trix and Captain Cavity all you do is blend up all of your leftover Halloween candy and mix it into the dough, lol! No, but seriously, the deal on those ones is that it requires a process needing huge amounts of pressure that then puffs the dough. They actually began a long time ago using a cannon to puff the dough (also called the “gun puff” method of extrusion (BTW, this link is entertaining). From what I understand, today’s method requires ultra high pressured pressure cookers; so it’s not a safe (…or reasonable…or healthy?) option. I have another recipe I’m working on that’s fruity, but as far as the puffed cereals, that’s not going to happen.
I’ve done faux rice krispies by cooking white rice, spreading it out and letting it dry (at least overnight), then popping it in my popcorn popper with peanut oil. They aren’t perfect, but it works well enough for krispy treats. Some folks say you can just steam the rice kernels to get enough moisture in them so they’ll pop without needing to fully cook them first, but I haven’t mastered that one.
I did have some beans explode in a pressure cooker the blew it’s top… so it *might* be possible to gun-puff a batter/dough in a pressure canner if you’re brave enough to pull the lid off for rapid depressurization. I don’t know if I like Corn Pops and Honey Smacks THAT much