Red Berries Cereal White Chocolate Chip Muffins

Do you ever end up with the occasional box of stale cereal? Seems like a strange concept now that I'm thinking about it. I mean really, you're going to pour milk over it and make it soft anyhow, so can it really be stale? I had a box of generic strawberry cereal sitting around for what felt like too long, so rather than eating it as cereal, I decided to play around with it to make muffins. Didn't work out so well on the first attempt - too much liquid, too many chips, and too much sugar for an already sweetened cereal. I had enough left to try another batch, but I had pirated most of the berries for the first batch, so the one that worked was short on berries.

INGREDIENTS :

2 c strawberry cereal

1/3 c white chocolate chips

1 c flour

1/3 c sugar

1 T baking powder

1/2 t salt

3/4 c milk

1 t vanilla

2 eggs

1/4 c canola oil, or 4T melted butter

When you measure out your cereal, be sure to sneak in a few extra berries, then pulse it through your food processor or place it in a plastic bag and run a rolling pin over it to break it up. I like to do the same with the chocolate chips so the smaller bits melt into the muffins (or cookies, etc.)
In one bowl, whisk together the broken cereal and chips with the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
In a second bowl, whisk together the milk, vanilla, eggs, and oil or butter.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet, mixing until just combined.
Scoop/pour into greased muffin cups and bake at 350 for about 30" until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

The texture of these muffins is along the lines of an oatmeal muffin, and the berries added nice flavor. Are they my favorite muffin? No, but they have certainly made me curious to try other versions with random odds and ends cereal. I find that cereal is much like that last gulp of juice or milk in the bottle. If you've got kids (and often men) in the house, they're likely to put it back practically empty rather than throw it away. Another strange phenomena, much like that one sock that comes out of the dryer when you're sure that two went in. Another good use for those bottom-of-the-box bits of cereal are for adding to your breading for chicken, etc.