KITCHEN LITTLE ESSENTIALS
To make this Healthy Homemade Cinnamon Toast Crunch, I’d recommend the following:
A Silpat or parchment paper
About 10 years ago, I published a recipe * almost * exactly like this one on my old OLD blog, The DIY Chef. It was a Homemade Cinnamon Toast Crunch of sorts and when I hit “publish” on that post, I was filled with excitement over it, sure that the views and visitors and rave reviews would just come pouring in. But, with the exception of my sweet Mom, it was mostly just crickets.
This was back in the day when food blogs were hardly even a thing yet, before I had a clue what I was doing or where I wanted to go with my own. But I did love cereal, and the notion of making my own seemed one part silly/unnecessary and one part AWESOME. My fascination over creating store-bought items from scratch hasn’t waned at all in the decade since that old post. If anything, it’s increased. Fast all the way forward to today, and you’ve got this refined, tighter, even more thoughtful version of that old recipe, and it’s honestly one of my favorite things I’ve made in some time.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but homemade cereal is making quite a big splash across the food world right now. I saw a wonderful recipe on IG the other day from Half Baked Harvest, and then I fell down an internet rabbit hole as I was playing around with the recipe, and I also spotted a paleo version. This one is super cool and uses coconut sugar and whole grain almond and coconut flours in the dough. My recipe today is something in the middle. It’s healthy and uses almond and oat flour, coconut oil and unrefined sugar. But I don’t care much for coconut sugar, so I’m using cane sugar instead.
I wanted to make this as a fun treat for my kids, that I wouldn’t feel so guilty about, as I watch them scarf it down, you know? I think this is a nice option. It’s having a moment to be sure, and with the exception of a very good granola recipe that I love, this Healthy Homemade Cinnamon Toast Crunch is my favorite. Apologies to the tiny pancakes that are the internet’s current obsession.
What makes this homemade cereal healthy?
Rather than using all-purpose flour and regular granulated sugar, as many recipes for Cinnamon Toast Crunch call for, we’re going to use much better-for-you almond flour (I use super fine) and oat flour. Both of these items are things that are readily available in the baking aisle of just about every supermarket, and they’re also things that are really nice to have around. I love to use oat flour in oatmeal cookies, along with whole rolled oats, to really double down on the “OAT” effect.
We’ll also use unrefined cane sugar here, instead of granulated, as it is a bit better for you as well. That said, you can use white sugar if you like.
WANT TO MAKE IT PALEO?
Simply swap in coconut sugar for the cane sugar. The recipe still works great.
But to be honest with you, I’m using these flours and sugar not because they’re better for you. I’m using them because they’re the best. They’re the most delicious and best ingredients for this amazing cereal, and will get you to a final product that is so incredibly similar to the one on grocery store shelves that you’ll just be so, so pleased.
How to Make This Healthy Homemade Cinnamon Toast Crunch
The real powerhouses here – the backbones of this homemade cereal – are the flours.
We’re using a combination of both super-fine almond flour and toasty oat flour to build the dough, and the textural and flavor results are absolutely spot on.
Coconut oil + Egg Whites = perfect binders. To bind the flour and cane sugar together into a dough, we’ll use some melted coconut oil and an egg white. Also healthy! You can use any kind of coconut oil that you’ve got or like, but I really love unrefined because its more, umm … coconutty. It tastes like coconut and it smells heavenly. It works perfectly here, but again, you can really use refined instead. Or canola, vegetable, grapeseed, or even avocado if you really just want to use what you’ve got on hand.
Just not olive oil.
I have found that the easiest way to make this cinnamon toast crunch is to cover a large baking sheet with parchment paper (or a Silpat, as I’ve used) and put your wet, sand-like dough right on there – no need to roll it out elsewhere and deal with tricky transfers of tiny squares, you know? No thanks.
It’s helpful to place a second sheet of parchment paper over the dough and then roll it out over top of that, to prevent your rolling pin/glass from sticking to the (very wet) dough. I use either a rolling pin or a heavy-bottomed glass and I begin to roll out the dough until it is as thick as I can get it. We’re looking for around 1/16-inch.
Next, cut it into squares! I don’t measure this part – no need. It’s cereal. Just eyeball it and make the squares bite-sized and as close to the real deal as you can get. I love to use a pizza cutter for this, as it works so well, but of course a knife is great too.
Now, once you’ve cut your squares – do it again. Go back over all your lines and really make sure the dough is separated and that the squares are defined. The dough will sort of bake together in the oven, but this “scoring” step will make it a breeze to cut them up once they’ve baked.
Bake the cereal for about 5 minutes at 425 degrees F, but keep an eye on them, as this thin dough is susceptible to burning. So, just watch them! They will be soft when you take them out of the oven. This is when we’ll shower them in cinnamon-sugar. I don’t do this prior to baking, as the sugar will scorch and burn and ruin everything, so later is better. Trust.
Just run your pizza cutter/knife back over your original cut lines to break up the squares and voila! Best homemade cinnamon toast crunch around.
If you like the looks of this recipe, you might want to try:
Homemade Berries and Cream Toaster Strudel
Easiest Cinnamon Sugar Popovers
PrintHealthy Homemade Cinnamon Toast Crunch
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
Ingredients
1 cup superfine almond flour
¼ cup oat flour
¾ cup pure cane sugar plus more for sprinkling
3 tsp ground cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling
¼ tsp salt
2 TBSP coconut oil, melted
1 egg white
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. Adjust your oven rack to the middle position. Place a Silpat or piece of parchment paper on a large baking pan.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the almond and oat flours, cane sugar, and salt. Mix to combine. Add the melted coconut oil and the egg white. Use your hands to mix everything together into a cohesive dough. It will look and feel like wet sand. Transfer to the parchment paper or Silpat on your baking sheet.
- Top with another piece of parchment paper (this isn’t completely necessary, but it makes rolling super easy). Using a rolling pin or a heavy-bottomed glass, press and roll the dough out until it is very, very thin. We’re going for 1/16th inch, if possible. The thinness is what gets you the crunch. Otherwise, you’ll just get soft squares. Still delicious, but not quite right.
- Using a pizza cutter or sharp knife, cut the dough into small, equal, bite-sized squares. Go back over all of your cuts a second time (this helps really score the dough, making for easier cutting once it’s baked).
- Bake for 4.5 to 5 minutes, or just until things start looking golden brown. Keep an eye on them. Shower with cinnamon-sugar (see note) when they’re out of the oven, pressing it into the soft cereal very gently. Allow to cool for 5 minutes.
- Once they’ve cooled for a few minutes, go back over the cuts you made before and fully separate the squares from one another. This is the fastest, easiest way to do this. Add a little more cinnamon-sugar and allow to cool completely before enjoying.
Notes
NOTE: to make cinnamon-sugar, I combine about 1/3 cup of cane sugar with a healthy sprinkle of cinnamon (maybe 1 tsp) in a small bowl – to taste. Stir together and shower with abandon.
Keywords: Healthy Homemade Cinnamon Toast Crunch
