How to make cereals - in four simple steps!

From golden grain to whole grain flour

When the grain has been ripened by sunshine, harvested and then cleaned, it's brought to our factory. At most of our factories, we mill it ourselves, as this cuts the time between the grinding of the grain and the finished product (about two hours!), so the flour is really fresh. And by doing our own milling, we only produce as much wholegrain flour as we need - so no waste!

How would you do it at home?

Well, you probably wouldn't grind the grain yourself - unless you live in a windmill! But the whole grain flour you use for your baking is going to be pretty similar to what we're using - only ours will usually be fresher. Thats because, where we mill it ourselves, it goes straight from the mill into the mixer.

Mix it together, then turn up the temperature!

Before the milled grains are cooked, we mix the flour with water and other ingredients, including the vitamins and minerals we add, and cook the mix into a dough vacuum blender to create a dough. (If we're going to coat the finished product later on, we keep back a few additional ingredients like chocolate.)

How would you do it at home?

This is the whisking, mixing, beating part of the home baking process. That bit where you throw all the ingredients into a bowl and put in some serious elbow grease! If you're baking bread, it's where you knead that gloopy goo into a soft, supple dough (or save yourself the hard work and toss it all into the breadmaker. Whatever would grandma say?!). By the way, cooking our ingredients to make the dough is a bit like you proving your bread mixture in the airing cupboard and waiting for it to rise.

Creating those cookies and clusters

Then the dough goes through one of our special machines - think pasta press or sausage maker - to create the cereal shapes you know and love: hoops, balls, flakes, cookies and clusters. And did you know? SHREDDED WHEAT is made by literally shredding the wheat using rollers with grooves on!

How would you do it at home?

When you get out the cookie cutters to make your favourite biscuits or gingerbread people, you're shaping your dough, just like we do.

Crispy cereal fresh out of the oven

Finally, we put the cereal shapes into one of our large ovens where they're toasted for just the right amount of time. Imagine a huge, very hot tumble dryer, except this one doesn't dry your socks - it gives your cereal a lovely golden colour and crisp crunch. When they're done, we let them cool (some of them get a final coating of flavour, like a touch of chocolate, mmmm!), then we pack them up and ship them off to the shops. Job done.

How would you do it at home?

This is the "pop-your-cakes-into-a-preheated-oven-for-40-minutes" bit. We've just got a bigger oven.