The Original Kellogg’s Corn Flakes
City/Region: Battle Creek, Michigan
Time Period: 1895
Dr. John Kellogg was all about health, and when his brother, William (the financial brains of the operation), wanted to add sugar to the very bland original Corn Flakes, he flat out refused. Eventually, William bought the rights to Corn Flakes, changed the recipe, and the rest is history.
I don’t have the industrial rollers that the original recipe for Corn Flakes used, so I made a dough. The flakes turned out nice and crispy, but they are very bland. I would recommend using stone-ground cornmeal and adding some sugar and salt to make the whole process easier and the end product tastier.
Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 lbs (1 kg) whole dried large corn kernels, like the kind that would be used to make hominy
- Water, enough to make a dough
Instructions:
- In a large bowl, cover the corn with water, then put it in the fridge to soak for about 12 hours.
- After the corn has soaked, drain it and add it to a large pot. Fill the pot with water so that it covers the corn (the kernels may float, but the idea is that you want plenty of water). Bring it to a boil, cover the pot, and boil for 1 hour, stirring occasionally to make sure that none of the corn is sticking to the bottom of the pot.
- After 1 hour or when the corn is nice and soft, drain it and spread it out onto a sheet pan to cool.
- Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°C).
- Put the cooled corn into a food processor and process it until you have a coarse meal. Mine was quite a bit coarser than cornmeal and still had a few larger pieces in it.
- Transfer the coarse meal to a bowl and add water a bit at a time, mixing with your hands, until you get a dough that can be rolled out. This isn’t a very precise process and the consistency of the dough is up to you, but I think that the more water you add, the thinner you’ll be able to roll the dough out.
- Place the dough between two pieces of parchment paper and roll it out as thinly as possible. Move the dough and parchment to a baking sheet and remove the top piece of parchment paper.
- Bake for 15 minutes, or until it is nice and crispy. Take it out and let it cool, then break it up into flakes.
- Serve them forth plain or with milk.