Breakfast
Week night/day friendly
Gluten free*

Try this for something a bit different and you won’t be disappointed. It’s perfect for breakfast as the weather warms up and the porridge season ends. Rolled oat flakes are soaked, together with walnuts, raisins, and two kinds of seeds. Finely grated apple, a small handful of deep purple mulberries, and a few dollops of honey-sweetened yoghurt are then folded through. It’s finished with a dusting of cinnamon and a little unrefined cold-pressed flaxseed oil drizzled across the top.

Swiss nutritionist Bircher-Benner first introduced this wholesome dish to the patients in his hospital sometime during the 1900s. While on a hike through the Swiss Alps, he had discovered that oats, like most grains (as well as nuts and seeds), benefit greatly from soaking and a little fermentation. These are age-old techniques that make whole grains more nutritious and easier to digest. Unfortunately, soaked muesli fell out of fashion with the rise of the less natural, dry, packaged version that is so popular today.

Not only is Bircher muesli delicious and deeply satisfying, the slow releasing carbohydrates will keep you going throughout the morning. Start to prepare this recipe the night before — it only takes a couple of minutes and, when you get up the next day, simply add the remaining ingredients. If you eat as often as I do, you might like to play around with the basic recipe to keep it interesting. You’ll find some of my favourite variations underneath the recipe.

Bircher Muesli
With Mulberries and Runny Honey

I use Cornish dessert apples here, which are wonderfully sweet and crisp. There are many other UK varieties to choose from like Egremont Russet, Eltar and Spartan. Also, this recipe calls for mulberries, but don’t worry if you can’t find them — any seasonal berry will work just as well. I am in China at the moment and mulberries appear in fresh markets everywhere at this time of year. The season for mulberries in the UK is August through till September.

As always, I recommend you choose organic ingredients where and when it’s possible, especially when it comes to dairy products. Look for a good quality, full-fat yoghurt and make sure it has ‘contains active live cultures’ written somewhere on the label. Avoid ‘instant’ or ‘quick’ oats and choose raw honey over the standard kind, which has most likely been heat treated.

If you would like to find out more about the natural foods in this recipe, check out the ‘Ingredients Spotlight’ later this week. In there, you’ll find answers to some of the what, where, why, and how questions that surround the ingredients I use.

The night before:

2 cups of rolled oats
1 1/2 cups filtered water
A handful of crushed walnuts
A handful of raisins
A small handful of pumpkin and sunflower seeds
1 tablespoon of unsweetened, natural yoghurt or whey*

Place the oats, walnuts, seeds, and raisins in a bowl. Mix in the warm filtered water, along with a tablespoon of yoghurt, whey, or lemon juice. Cover with a plate and leave it to soak overnight. Don’t put it in the refrigerator, as you want to encourage a little fermentation.

The morning after:

1 grated apple
1 punnet of fresh mulberries
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1-2 tablespoons of runny honey
½ cup unsweetened, natural yoghurt
1 tablespoon cold pressed unrefined flaxseed oil (optional)

Whisk the yoghurt and the honey together and put to one side. Grate the apple (seeds and all) and mix into the soaked oats*, together with the mulberries, cinnamon, and honey-sweetened yoghurt.

Serve in individual bowls, dusted with a little extra cinnamon and a drizzle of unrefined, cold-pressed flaxseed oil. If you prefer it a little sweeter, serve with extra honey.

Serves 1-2

* Whey is the watery liquid that separates from the curds in yoghurt. Thanks to the action of friendly lacto-bacteria, soaking grains seeds and nuts in yoghurt or whey will help to make them easier to digest.

* For a drier finish, tilt the bowl slightly and drain away a little of the soaking water from the oats, just before you add the remaining ingredients. You can also place the soaked oats in a sieve and squeeze out a lot of the liquid with a potato masher. It is a matter of playing around until you find how you like it.

*Oats are naturally gluten free, but there is some controversy as to whether they are suitable for people who suffer from Ceoliac disease. I will talk more about this in my next Ingredient Spotlight.

Five ways to flavour Bircher Muesli:

1. For a taste of the tropics, replace the yoghurt with unsweetened coconut milk or cream and use chunks of fresh pineapple in place of the grated apple. Sprinkle toasted coconut on top and sweeten with a little date sugar (or a natural cane sugar, like Rapadura).

2. Replace the rolled oats with barley or rye flakes. In place of the apple and berries, try adding a grated pear and a handful of fresh grapes, halved.

3. Omit the honey and drizzle with organic maple syrup instead. This natural sweetener has more of a kick than honey, so you shouldn’t need to add any to the body of the muesli. Fresh blueberries are nice with this one, too.

4. Say goodbye to Coco Pops by sprinkling in a few raw cacao nibs for a more natural chocolate experience. Use sliced banana instead of grated apple. Take it a step further and substitute the water here for full-fat, organic milk. Swap the walnuts for a handful of toasted almond shavings. This is divine.

5. Stay with the honey and grated apple, but change half of the filtered water for freshly squeezed orange or apple juice. Add a sprinkle of grated orange zest and naturally crystallized ginger as well.