I don’t like Grape-Nuts. For the first three minutes, they’re unchewable pebbles of gravel, and then after three minutes and one second, they absorb all of the milk and transform into a gum-able mush. I’m not quite sure how they convert themselves so quickly from one inedible texture to an entirely different inedible texture, but by some feat of engineering it is so. Plus, they taste bad.
You would think that grape nuts were an invention of our food-product, soy+corn system, but they’re actually predated by a home-cooked version. I love home-cooked versions – even, it turns out, of stuff I don’t love. So when I found “Graham Nuts” in a cookbook on Indiana Amish cookery, it was on. It had to be. First, I can’t help making things that are irrational to produce at home, and cold cereal falls delightfully within that category. Second, my mother gave me a meat grinder for my birthday. Obviously I'm going to make any recipe that requires a meat grinder.
Here's how it goes - a biscuit-like dough is baked in a big patty, and then the patty is ground (with my brand-new meat grinder!), and those crumbs are then baked again at a low temperature until a crunchy (but not gravel-like) cold cereal emerges. I’m telling you, with a proper religious conversion and a wringing of my feminist politics and love for electricity, I could so be Amish. Well, actually, as Christian separatist sects go, I’d rather be Shaker (they have better banisters), but I am good with Amish cold cereals so I’m just saying.
Here’s the thing about homemade Graham Nuts as compared to store bought Grape-Nuts: they taste good - a clean blend of whole wheat, molasses-tinged brown sugar, and buttermilk. On your tongue, it tastes as it is – hearty sweet biscuit crumbs dehydrated to preserve and salvaged for a second tasty breakfast. I am unnaturally delighted to open my cupboard and find them sitting by the boxes of cold cereal – stalwart little soldiers of “olden times” America, little pieces of edible archeology.
Graham Nuts
Adapted from Cooking from Quilt Country, Marcia Adams
I know meat grinders are not standard kitchen utensils any longer so I tried this with a Cuisinart too. It works great. The pieces are more standardized with a grinder, but exactly as delicious without one.
3 ½ cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together flour, brown sugar, salt, baking soda and cinnamon. Add buttermilk and vanilla; stir to blend. On a greased baking sheet, spread dough evenly. Bake for 20-25 minutes until patty is firm and lightly browned around the edges. Cool patty on a rack.
When patty has cooled to room temperature (it can sit uncovered overnight if necessary), break it into small chunks and feed through a meat grinder. Alternatively, small batches can be pulsed in a food processor. Divide crumbs evenly between two large pans (don't crowd them). Bake at 275 degrees for 30 minutes, stirring frequently. Let cool and enjoy with milk or yogurt.
Sourcing: King Arthur Whole-Wheat Flour, Whole Foods 365 Brand Organic Brown Sugar, Hain Sea Salt, Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, Penzey’s Vietnamese Cassia Cinnamon, Natural-by-Nature Grassfed Buttermilk, and Penzey’s Vanilla Extract
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