Oat bannock

In addition to being made raw, muesli can be toasted. Muesli can also be processed further by adding sweetener and oil to bind oat bannock ingredients together and baked to produce granola. Muesli was not originally intended as a breakfast food, but as an appetiser similar to bread and butter.

It was introduced around 1900 by Bircher-Benner for patients in his hospital, where a diet rich in fresh fruit and vegetables was an essential part of therapy. It was inspired by a similar “strange dish” that he and his wife had been served on a hike in the Swiss Alps. Apples, “two or three small apples or one large one”. The whole apple was to be used, including skin, core, and pips. Nuts, either walnuts, almonds, or hazelnuts, one tablespoon.

Rolled oats, one tablespoon, “previously soaked in 3 tablespoons water for 12 hours”. Lemon juice from half a lemon. Either cream and honey or sweetened condensed milk, 1 tablespoon. The dish was prepared by mixing the cream and honey or condensed milk with the soaked oats and lemon juice and, while stirring, grating the whole apple into the mixture. This method prevented the apple pulp from browning.