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Cereal adds flavor, fiber to muffins

Photo by Lynn Kessel

Your favorite cereal takes on a whole new life in these wonderful muffins. Try dried fruits such as diced apricots, prunes or golden raisins to vary the flavor.

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By LYNN KESSEL

Tribune Correspondent

Published: September 30, 2009

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Lynn Kessel

I eat plenty of breakfast cereal, just none that's floating in milk. Most mornings, my breakfast of champions consists of a scoop of dry organic cereal, banana and cup of coffee.

As a pre-teen, I decided I didn't like milk, and I never liked soggy cereal.

So for me, cereal is a dry snack, something I munch on with other foods.

But my better half polishes off a box of shredded wheat squares as if they were chocolate chip cookies and generally ends up discarding at least two inches of tiny shards left behind at the bottom of each box.

Until recently, I had tossed out the shards, without giving it a second thought. Then I started thinking there must be something I could do with the cereal leftovers. I needed a new game plan.

Thinking something would hit me, I began emptying the leftover wheat into a plastic bag. And after a few weeks, I had collected a pretty large stash. Still, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it.

Then I got a request from Melanie Morrison, who asked me if there was any chance I could prepare something healthy for a Ruskin chamber board meeting.

"How about a do-it-yourself yogurt bar with homemade granola and bowls of mandarin oranges, sliced bananas, diced strawberries and melon?"

She loved the idea.

But the breakfast menu needed some fiber. Aha! I thought about bran muffins.

At last, I figured out a way to incorporate that organic cereal dust.

This week's recipe is for bottom-of-the-cereal-box enriched muffins. Serve them slathered with honey butter. That's how cereal should be served.

BOTTOM-OF-THE-CEREAL-BOX MUFFINS

11/2 cups bread flour

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

1 cup oat bran

11/2 cups crushed organic whole-wheat cereal

41/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

11/2 cups buttermilk

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup diced dried apricots

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Prepare the muffin tins by spraying them lightly with cooking spray or using muffin liners.

Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt together into a mixing bowl. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. In a separate bowl, blend the shredded cereal, buttermilk, eggs, oil and vanilla. Add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and stir by hand just until the batter is evenly moistened. Fold in the dried apricots.

Fill the prepared muffin tins about three-quarters full. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, for 20 to 25 minutes.

Cool the muffins in the pan for about 10 minutes before removing them from the pan. The muffins can be served warm or transferred them to a cooling rack to finish cooling before storing in an airtight container.

Lynn Kessel can be reached at lkessel@mac.com.

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