Homemade Muesli

Twice a month I toast muesli for Kishore’s breakfast. It takes about an hour to put together and the stock lasts him about 2 weeks. Before I began making this muesli about 2 years ago, Kishore had tried various cereal mixes and used to mostly favour the one marketed by Wahida Rahman. In that period, I made some attempts at creating various mixes of my own, but it was only once I chanced upon a video on making of muesli on some site and got some basic things right, that my brand of muesli became a success with Kishore and some friends. I follow this rather hands-on but simple process to toast muesli at home.

Ingredients

White oats:  One 500 gm box (I use Bagrrey’s)

Cornflakes:  5 small cups (I prefer Mohun’s over any other)

Wheat bran: 1/4^th small cup (Bagrrey’s)

Oat bran: 1/4^th small cup (Bagrrey’s)

Ramdana/Amaranth/Rajgiri: ½ small cup (usually I bash up 2-3 ramdana laddoos)

Flax seed: 1/4^th small cup

Black and green raisins: 1/3^rd small cup altogether

Almonds: ½ small cup, broken in big pieces

Honey: ½ small cup

Olive oil: ½ small cup

How to go about it:

Each item has to be dry-broiled/toasted under an OTG’s grill. I keep the grill setting at nearly 250 deg celsius and use an ungreased aluminum oven tray to toast each item separately. Cereals should be spread in a thin layer so they get somewhat evenly toasted.

1. I prefer to start with cornflakes as they toast quickly and the 5-cup quantity takes about 3 or 4 tray-loads to complete. Under a hot grill, each tray-load takes about 2 minutes to toast. Collect the whole stock of toasted cornflakes in a large mixing bowl and crush it somewhat with a wooden pounder or potato masher. This brings their large flaky size to a size slightly bigger than oats.
2. Then I toast thin layers of bran, raisins, flax seed, ramdana and end with oats, one after the other. Other than oats, every other item takes just a minute or slightly more to toast so can’t be left unattended. I like toasting even raisins as warm raisins allow bran or cereal to stick to them. Flax seeds should be toasted only as far as they start popping. They taste nice and nutty and can’t be avoided because of their cholesterol lowering properties. Wheat bran acquires a brown look very rapidly but oat bran takes a wee bit longer. Big broken pieces of almonds would take longer to toast than raisins but not so long that they should be left unattended.
3. Oats take the longest to toast. Their quantity is also more than other cereals as oat as a cereal is considered beneficial for its cholesterol lowering quality. Use only thin layers of oat shreds on the tray and toast them till slightly brown—will take about 5 minutes per tray. Overly brown oats or cornflakes would make the mix bitter.
4. All the dry toasted items can be placed in a heap in a large mixing bowl. Or, 2 mixing bowls as I find the whole quantity difficult to toss properly.
5. The last item to add is the combination of two liquids. Olive oil and honey can be put in a single mug and heated in the microwave oven for a minute or less. The mix should be hot, not just warm.
6. Once heated, the liquid mix is poured on the heap of toasted cereals and nuts, and the whole mix is mixed well with 2 large spoons.
7. Then, it’s as simple as letting the mix cool before filling it in jars.

One can have this muesli with cold or hot milk and even with sliced bits of banana or some stewed apple added to milk. If one prefers a sweeter taste, the quantity of honey can be increased or a bit of sugar can be added while eating the day’s muesli. Kishore finds the amount of honey used in the recipe enough for his requirement of sweetness in the cereal but it’d be less for me!

I enjoy eating this muesli as a topping for vanilla ice cream once in a while…so, that’s another use for it for its consumers.

Let me know if you make any kind of muesli at home and follow a different method or ingredients. If I happen to have another toasted grain, I add that too to vary the taste, but generally follow the same method.