If only the Three Bears had made Bircher’s Muesli

This is what the whole oats look like after soaking overnight in milk.

Soak the ingredients together in bowl in the fridge overnight:

• 2 cups whole jumbo oats or rolled oats
• 1 3/4 cups milk
• 1/4 cup apple juice
• 3 Tbsp lemon juice (lemon juice aids in the fermentation or breaking down the oats) 

The finished Birchers Muesli creamy with a crunch of the nuts and  the freshness of the apple.

The next morning mix in:
nuts drained and chop to a size you want
Grate 1-2 apples with their skins on
2-3 Tbsp runny honey
1 1/2 cups of plain Greek style yoghurt

You can eat the muesli just as it is but I like to top with cut up seasonal fruit ..  and in the muesli like to add as much apple as possible in a nod to the original recipe that contained more apple than oats

I serve this with a mix of chopped up fresh fruit and a slurp of Flax seed oil.   But you can be creative as you like with the fruits you choose or added seeds and nuts.

I was surprised when my daughter Tansy said young Beau had a taste of the Birchers Muesli and really liked it.   Being a 3 year old he is quite conservative with his breakfast usually preferring Weetbix or an egg. It’s worth considering offering Birchers muesli to children for breakfast.

Dr Maximilian Bircher-Benner, a physician based in Zurich in the 1900’s put Birchers muesli on the map. As is the way with many recipes he didn’t come up with the idea from scratch.  While hiking in the Swiss mountains he came to rest at an alpine hut and was offered by a local woman a delicious and reviving dish of grated apple, mixed with soaked oats, lemon juice, condensed milk and almond meal. He realised this was the dish he needed to get his patients eating more fruit.

Dr Bircher-Benner eating he muesli before he evening meal. It wasn’t originally thought of as a breakfast food but as an entree probably because the apple aided digestion.

Dr Bircher-Benner became increasingly interested in Naturopathy. He saw that food could help cure some of the ailments his wealthy clients suffered from.  He set up what became a world famous sanatorium in Zurich where patients would partake in a diet high in fruit, vegetables, nuts and grains and he encouraged regular exercise. Birchers Muesli was a tasty way of getting them to eat fruit. This regime was seen as controversial by his peers in the 1900’s so he was indeed a man ahead of his time.

Left: the Banana Oat Thickie as per Hugh’s recipe; centre the addition of frozen mixed berries instead of ice cubes; right addition of about a Tbsp of freeze dried blackcurrants.

Serves 2
2 Tbsp porridge oats soaked overnight
2 All Good Bananas (my choice)
300 ml Milk (or 150 yoghurt and 150 milk)
1 Tbsp runny honey
2-3 ice blocks

You can use a blender or a stick blender to mix.   Males 2 large glasses.