3C Crunch

I am not a breakfast person. The only exception is cereal. Yummy, sweet, crunchy, milk-drowned breakfast goodness. I periodically order American cereals, the sugary ones denied to me in my childhood in favour of cornflakes. Seriously if I ever have another bowl of plain flakes it will be too soon. But alas those babies are wallet busting expensive in the Netherlands. 

Plus they don't have my other favourite type of cereal; crunchy, mega cluster granola. And yet another food that makes my day is dried cherries. I first purchased a bag at Cold Storage in Singapore and have been hooked since. But it is yet another thing I can’t find easily where I live. Dried raisins, prunes, dates yes, cherries alas no. You have no idea how tough I have it some days having not (so-ordinary) Dutchie food tastes. And so I make my own cereal now and then. Why not add in my favourite sweet sauce? And I figured heck, why not try making my own dried cherries as well? Here are the results.

The three C’s, after crunchy, of my breakfast cereal of choice; tart and dark cherries, chocolate and above all caramel.. salted caramel to be exact. I love salted caramel and have a batch in my fridge at all times because when you need a fix, you need a fix quick. This cereal is so good my week batch’s lasted three days the first time and a mere two the second time aroud. The kids can not get enough. Zoe Isobel who is not a fruit eater is gaga for the cherries, Mika asks for a cluster about every five minutes and all three of us sit there crunching away and then slurping the chocolate milk at the end. Chocolate milk? Yep, before baking I tossed the oats, nuts and cherries with a mix of heated caramel, coconut oil, a bit of deep rich maple syrup and then threw in the chocolate. Result; each caramel cluster has an invisible layer of chocolate you don’t see till it hits the milk, especially still warm from the oven..

This is my most favourite cereal! Breakfast, lunch and snack worthy and a quick bowl before and after dinner. With our without the milk it’s the shizzle!