Cereal Milk Tiramisu

We’re out here steeping corn flakes in milk to make cereal milk as if it’s still 2014. I know cereal milk was more like a 2006 thing, but I didn’t have my first Milk Bar experience at its East Village location until 2014. But since then, cereal milk has been a staple in my baking and the amount I make it makes up for the fact I was eight years late to the game. The original Milk Bar cereal milk recipe uses toasted corn flakes and then its lightly sweetened with brown sugar. I’ve always made mine with frosted flakes (which adds a very subtle sweetness) and omitted adding the sugar during this step — instead I would make a slightly less sweet cereal milk with the frosted flakes and add more sugar later on when I was incorporating the milk into the baking. That being said, you can also use whatever cereal you like. Cinnamon Toast Crunch would be a delicious option and I think Corn Pops would equally lovely. I always stick with Frosted Flakes because that’s what I ate most growing up and the best thing about cereal milk is the nostalgia that it brings.

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This cereal milk tiramisu came to because I had a copious amount of cereal in my very small pantry and I also needed an excuse to open up the box of Frosted Flakes so I could mindlessly snack on it while doing other things. All five boxes of cereal were originally for a cereal cookies series I was going to start (we’ll get a rain check on that), but silver lining for delaying that cookies series is this cereal milk tiramisu. Tiramisu isn’t something I make often because a) the price of mascarpone is something I will never understand or can afford and b) it seems almost too boring of a dessert to make all the time. Before you get riled up and tell me all the reasons why tiramisu is a superior dessert, I will wholeheartedly agree that tiramisu is great, but it’s more of a dessert I order at the end of a meal at some red sauce Italian joint rather than something I make at home.

After seeing my good friend Erika’s tiramisu bake-off, I immediately made A Cozy Kitchen’s winning tiramisu recipe. After making it for the first time a few weeks back, I’ve made tiramisu more times in the last little while than my entire life. It’s such a simple and reliable recipe that I don’t think I will ever need another tiramisu recipe for the days mascarpone goes on sale at the grocery for still an exorbitant price. Adrianna’s recipe is what this cereal milk recipe is based off of, but will some adjustments for incorporating cereal flavours into the dessert.

We first make ‘cereal milk’ in two forms — cereal milk for soaking the lady fingers (in lieu of espresso) and cereal cream for the mascarpone layers of the tiramisu. The longer you can let the cereal soak in the dairy the better, but if you’re running short on time, anything above a 2-hour soak will be sufficient. Because the cereal will absorb a lot of the dairy, you will need to use a lot more milk and cream than called for in A Cozy Kitchen’s original recipe. After making the cereal milk and cream, the rest of the steps are really straightforward. The lady fingers (store-bought is completely the way to go here) are soaked in the cereal milk then layered at the bottom of the pan. A generous layer of cereal mascarpone cream gets piped on, then you repeat the steps one more time. Right before serving, dust the tiramisu with crushed Frosted Flakes to really tie it all together. You can make this tiramisu in a square 8×8 baking pan, but I opted for four plastic containers to really show off the layers of the tiramisu.

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