Cooking With Dia

How many of you out there loath the prices of cereal? I do! Now, it isn’t just this economy crisis that has sky rocketed the prices, in my opinion they have always been high. As a child my mother always had to buy the “no frills” generic brand–instead of “rice crispies” we had “crispy rice” or instead of “captin crunch” we had “crunchy bits”…Of course as a little girl I wanted to be like my friends and have the “normal” brands, but now that I am all grown up I am thriftier than ever. And I say forget about cereal altogether!

Don’t they look delicious? They only take 20 minutes to bake and cost half the price of a box of Special K. Let’s break it down:
I am only using 2 cups(16oz) of flour from a 2 kg(4lbs) bag that cost me 1 british pound($1.47),
1 cup of milk from a 1 pint(2 cups) bottle, which cost me 50p ($.75),
250 grams of fresh fruit or chocolate chips which would vary, but as an example let’s use 2 large apples for 36p($.54), 3/4 a cup of sugar from a 1kg(2lb) bag for 75p($1.10), 3/4 cup(6oz) of butter which comes from a 250 gram stick at 90p and a drop of vanilla essence which would be from a tiny bottle which costs 50 p ($.75). The grand total for the actual amount of ingredients used for 12 muffins is:

10p ($.15)–flour
25p ($.37)–milk
36p ($.54)–fruit
19p ($.29)–sugar
5p ($.7)–vanilla essence
70p ($1.05)–butter
———————–
£1.65 ($2.47)

compared to a 500g Special K box at £3.19 ($4.80).

Considering that you would get around 6 bowls of cereal out of the 500g box of Special K, it would be far more worth your while baking 12 muffins because you would have 6 more meals than a box of cereal offers you. Assuming you eat 1 muffin for breakfast, you will be saving £3.30 ($4.95) for 12 breakfasts.

I know what you are thinking, isn’t a bowl of Special K healthier than 1 fresh fruit filled muffin? I won’t go into the math of how many calories, fat grams and sugar are in both 1 muffin and 1 bowl of cereal, but in your own opinion, which breakfast would give enough energy to make it to lunch?

Personally, I would prefer the fresh muffins to the box of cereal that is overly processed and has been sitting on a store shelf for who knows how long!

Phew…If you are worried that is too difficult to make muffins please read my How-to guide to making muffins.