Bircher Muesli

On a recent trip to Sydney, The Professor offered to make me some bircher muesli. Now, I've never been a fan of bircher muesli, it's a textural thing mostly, but I haven't really had any for years, and have probably only ever had awful supermarket versions and didn't think I'd ever had any homemade especially for me by a bircher fan. And I must admit to being somewhat intrigued by the process.

What follows is more a process than a recipe. But it is a rather low key way to enjoy a low GI breakfast. No cooking, just a bit of swishing about in a bowl and adding fruit.

Traditional rolled oats are a wonderful low GI (42) source of nutrition. You do need to be careful and generally avoid the instant oats as these are quite high GI.


Rolled oats
Cloudy apple juice
Slivered almonds
Grated green apple
Handful blueberries
Plain yoghurt to blend
A drizzle of pure floral honey (not a blended honey, which is higher GI)

Place rolled oats into a serving bowl. Add cloudy apple juice to soak. Cover. Leave overnight.
In the morning, add fruit, nuts and yoghurt to taste.

Apple juice is low GI (but energy dense). Cloudy apple juice has more antioxidants than regular apple juice. Which is I'm sure why my sister had it on standby.

Grated homegrown apple

The finished result

So. Am I a convert? No. Not really.  It wasn't awful by any stretch, and I'm very glad to have had the opportunity to try it again, but still, I have an issue with the texture of bircher muesli that I just don't think that I can overcome. I think I'd stick with regular muesli or porridge any day. 

Sonoma Spelt Maple and Almond Breakfast Muesli

I have long been on a quest for the perfect muesli, and after eating this fabulous example I'm left wondering if I've found it! I stumbled on this accidentally on a recent trip to Sydney. It was lurking in a rather humid and murky health food shop in Randwick. I was immediately intrigued. But vaguely disconcerted by the $14 price tag, for the 500gm bag.

It sounded great. Had a wonderful ingredient list full of recognisable stuff! Oats, spelt, maple syrup, almonds, raisins, sunflower oil, vanilla. Wow. All actual foods. All low GI ingredients. I must be in heaven. Made by an artisanal bakery, Sonoma, in Sydney. I've had their breads before in fancy restaurants and been very impressed.

So how is it? It smells fantastic- full of warm, caramelly aromas- such a shame blogs aren't scratch and sniff

Not stingy with the nuts either

I was lucky the week or so I was eating this (and I think their serving size of 125gm is just crazy, I would have eaten half that- making it almost cheap) in that I had an abundance of figs and blueberries to have on my muesli, making it even more delicious.

Life imitating art, or at least packaging

I'm looking forward to stocking up on more of this on a future trip to Sydney, and also checking out their Honey Spice Muesli.

Crunchy Granola Suite 2- Spicy Pear Gingergbread Muesli

It's taken me a while to get to posting this. I've made this muesli twice now. The first time was disappointing, which was very sad, perhaps I expected too much of it. I made a few mistakes with the first attempt. I tried cooking it with the oven fan on- not a good idea, it was much too dark, almost burnt- don't do it. I didn't put enough spice in, and I actually found the sugar a bit much. 

So, this time, I've cut back the sugar and ramped up the spices. I love gingerbread, and was keen to try to flavour a muesli this way. I have a wonderful Herbie's spice mix- Quartre Epices Sweet that helped with the genesis of this idea. A heady mix of allspice, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon. I love the warm spiciness of those wonderful, flavourful aromas of gingerbread and it's relatives like pain d'epices and speculaas. The other muse for my muesli making exploits was Wayfaring Chocolate, who makes a mean looking muesli when she's not wayfaring, or scarfing down chocolate (although she insists on calling it granola)

• 2  cups  rolled oats (not instant)
• 2/3 cup rolled barley
• 1 cup (120g) pepitas
• 1  (20mL) Logicane Low GI sugar
• 3 tblsp (60mL) golden syrup
• 1 tblsp (20mL) sesame oil
• 1 tblsp (20mL) canola oil
• 1 tsp quatre epices- sweet (allspice, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 2/3 cup (140g) dried pears, rehydrated, drained, and chopped

1. Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F). Mix oats, barley and pepitas in a bowl.

2. In a separate, larger bowl, whisk together the sugar, molasses, sesame and canola oils, and spices. Tip the oats and pepitas into the wet ingredients and stir well to combine.

3. Spread the mix onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes,  take out and stir  to avoid its edges burning.

4. Add  the chopped pears and stir through, then put muesli back in the oven for another 8-10 minutes, until starting to look toasted. Remember, the muesli will crisp up as it cools.

5. Eat multiple handfuls from the baking tray as the muesli cools.

Notes

Barley is very low GI, in fact one of the lowest GI foods. Sadly rolled barley is moderate GI, but I still have more than half a packet in the cupboard, so it needs to be used up. And the overall GI should still be low.

Last time the moisture from the rehydrated pears kept the muesli soggy instead of delightfully crisp. But the texture of the pears was much improved, so I hydrated them again, and then baked them separately, and stored them separately, and just put some on each morning for breakfast. 

I particularly love cinnamon and can't usually get enough of it. So I added some extra. And a touch of ginger- I can't believe I didn't think to add it the first time. I've had this a few days now for breakfast and I think next time I'll add even more spice- it's not quite there yet for me. 


I've used golden syrup in this twice now, and despite me thinking that it would be Fantastic, you don't get much of a note from it. I think I will try another syrup next time- molasses or treacle perhaps. I've got a rather large jar of treacle lurking in the back of the pantry. It's always fun to find a use for something that has otherwise been rendered useless. 

Crunchy Granola Suite

A recipe so good it has it's own theme music. I just can't think of granola without thinking Crunchy Granola Suite. Perhaps Neil Diamond's Crunchy Granola Suite and indeed his whole Hot August Night is so old and daggy that it's cool again? Perhaps Neil Diamond was never cool.

I'm more a cereal than toast for breakfast kind of gal. I've been happily eating store bought cereal for years. My current favourite is lovely, but only available now at one supermarket in town that I don't normally go to. A few days ago, Hannah disrupted this state of zen with her Spiced Fig, Pepita and Molassess Granola. Since then I've been plotting when to make it and thinking about how I would adapt it. Not that her recipe doesn't sound fab. It does. I just want to make it more low GI. Whilst she is young enough to chase the tall dark and handsome granolas of her dreams, I'm more after a midlle-aged quiet, low GI soul muesli. After all if you're going to go to the trouble of making your own muesli, you may as well tweak it and make it just like you want it.

Glorious Sunday Morning Low GI Maple Apple Muesli

• 2 2/3 cups (240g) rolled oats (not instant)
• 1 cup (120g) pepitas
• 2 1/2 tblsp (50mL) Logicane Low GI sugar
• 2 tsp (10mL) maple sugar
• 3 tblsp (60mL) maple syrup
• 1 tblsp (20mL) sesame oil
• 1 tblsp (20mL) canola oil
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 2/3 cup (140g) dried apples, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F). Mix oats and pepitas in a bowl.
2. In a separate, larger bowl, whisk together the sugar, molasses, sesame oil, spices, and almond extract. Tip the oats and pepitas into the wet ingredients and stir well to combine.
3. Spread the mix onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes,  take out and stir  to avoid its edges burning.
4. Add  the chopped apples and stir through, then put muesli back in the oven for another 8-10 minutes, until starting to look toasted. Remember, the muesli will crisp up as it cools.
5. Eat multiple handfuls from the baking tray as the muesli cools.

Notes

I have some fabulous Canadian maple syrup (low GI 54!) in the fridge, and a packet of maple sugar that a lovely friend sent me from Canada. So I had to make use of those. I don't know the gi of the maple sugar, so only replaced some of the low Gi sugar with it. The GI of molasses is unknown but predicted to be about the same as sugar (which is only a moderate 60). Figs are medium GI, whilst dried apples are an astonishing low GI treat with a GI of 29.

I was chicken and didn't want to double the sesame oil from the original, so I used half sesame oil, half canola. It's the right balance for me. 

The whole house fills with a delicious spicy aroma with this in the oven

It is delicious- particularly at step 5.

I'm looking forward to gobbling this batch up so I can make another and use a special spice mix I've got burning a hole in my pantry.