The joy of that sugary milk left in your bowl of cereal is condensed into a fun-to-make, tactile snack

Everyone loves cereal: there’s such a variety of shapes, sizes and flavours, and you often get a good splash of nostalgia with it, too. In recent years, chefs have been using cereal in desserts and baking, allowing people to be more experimental with flavours. Big love to Christina Tosi, the legendary American pastry chef who blew my mind with the idea of cereal milk. The amount given here makes more than you need for the recipe, so you can experiment with it in more bakes.

Cereal milk pull-apart bread



Prep 1 hr 15 min, plus proving

Steep Overnight

Cook 1 hr

Serves 8

For the cereal milk

150g of your favourite cereal, plus 1 handful extra, to finish

1 litre whole milk

50g light brown sugar

1 pinch salt

For the dough

175ml cereal milk (see above)

30g golden caster sugar

100g butter, in small chunks, plus extra for greasing

500g strong white bread flour

1 tsp fine sea salt

7g fast-action dried yeast

Zest of 2 oranges

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground cloves

4 medium eggs, lightly beaten, plus 1 large egg

For the cream cheese filling

200g cream cheese

4 tbsp icing sugar, sieved

For the honey glaze

20g unsalted butter

85g light brown sugar

20g runny honey





Heat the oven to 140C (130C fan)/ gas 2. To make the cereal milk, s pread the cereal on a baking tray lined with baking paper, and toast for 15-20 minutes. Set aside to cool. Put the cereal in a large bowl, pour over the milk, stir, and leave to steep for 30 minutes at room temperature. Strain the mixture through a sieve, collecting the milk in a medium-sized bowl underneath and pushing down on the cereal with the back of a spoon, then discard the cereal. Add the sugar and salt to the milk, whisk, then store in an airtight container in the fridge overnight.

The next day, make the dough. Warm 175ml cereal milk in a saucepan (reserve the rest of the milk for another time), remove from the heat, then stir in the sugar and butter, until melted. Leave to cool until lukewarm.

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl, then stir in the yeast, orange zest and spices. Make a well in the centre, pour in the beaten eggs and the milk mix, and mix to a soft dough. Tip on to a lightly floured surface and knead for 15 minutes, until soft and sticky. Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave until the dough has doubled in size – an hour and a half to two hours.

Meanwhile, make the filling: combine the cream cheese and icing sugar in a small bowl, cover and put in the fridge. When the dough is ready, knock it back on a lightly floured surface, then divide into 19 equal-sized balls of about 50g each. Flatten each one with your fingers, mould into a cup, fill with a big teaspoon of cream cheese, pinch shut and form into a ball again.

Lightly brush a 25cm spring-form cake tin with melted butter, then arrange the balls in circles around the tin, working from the outside in. Cover with clingfilm, then leave to prove for two hours. Beat the remaining egg, brush over the balls, then bake at 190C (180C fan)/gas 5 for 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the glaze. Bring the butter, sugar and honey to a simmer in a pan set over a medium heat. Cook for a few minutes, until the sugar has dissolved, then set aside. When the bread is baked, brush with the glaze, and sprinkle over a fresh handful of cereal to serve.