The rise of brownie CEREAL: Baker wows with her simple four-ingredient treats that remain intact even when covered in milk
- Videos of people making 'pancake cereal' took over TikTok during lockdown
- The bite-sized pancakes are covered in milk and eaten with a spoon like cereal
- Online chef Eloise Head recently started a spin-off craze for 'brownie cereal'
- She makes the dish with icing sugar, chocolate chips, cocoa powder and an egg
- The London food blogger has built a huge following on Instagram since isolation
A baker who gained hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers by sharing simple recipes during lockdown has started a craze for 'brownie cereal', a spin-off from the 'pancake cereal' trend that has dominated social media over the past month.
Videos on TikTok show millions making bite-sized pancakes, covering them in milk and eating them with a spoon, but London blogger Eloise Head created bowls of chocolate brownies for breakfast instead.
Ms Head is the founder of FitWaffle, an Instagram account inspired by her passion for food and fitness where she posts photos of decadent desserts to prove that everything can be enjoyed in moderation as part of a balanced diet.
She showed fans how to make the indulgent breakfast by mixing 160 grams of icing with 20 grams of cocoa powder, stirring in the white of one large egg and folding 65 grams of chocolate chips through the batter.
London baker Eloise Head's 'brownie cereal', a bowl of biscuit-like brownies smothered in milk and eaten with a spoon for breakfast
'Pancake cereal' topped with chocolate chips, maple syrup and a slab of butter, one of the most popular food trends to emerge on TikTok and Instagram during lockdown
The mixture should be spooned into a loaf tin lined with greaseproof paper, baked in the oven at 170 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes then cut into small chunks and smothered in milk.
The video has been 'liked' by over 34,400 people but opinion remains divided about the dessert-based cereal trend.
One woman said she doesn't like cereal of any kind but will 'absolutely use' the simple brownie recipe in place of classic ones that typically take up to two hours.
Another complained that the invention is nothing more than brownies drenched in milk, but Ms Head said this recipe differs from others because the brownies don't become soggy.
'Brownies and milk is such a good combo, especially when the brownies don't got soggy!' she posted in the caption of the video on Instagram.
'These aren't gooey, fudge brownies... they're sweet, chocolate-y and crumbly, a bit more like cookies.'
This is because Ms Head's recipe does not use fats like butter or egg yolk which are traditionally used to add moisture to cake batter.
The recipe also omits flour, whose protein creates a light, flimsy texture that would cause the brownies to break and crumble into tiny pieces.
The batter made from cocoa powder, icing sugar, chocolate chips and an egg white, in a mixing bowl (left) and being cut into bite-sized chunks after baking (right)
Eloise Head, who amassed a huge following on Instagram by sharing simple recipes for decadent desserts during lockdown
It's still unclear where the original pancake cereal trend was born, but bowls of miniature crepes slathered in syrup have been seen all over social media since the middle of April.
A search for the hashtag #pancakecereal on TikTok generates a staggering 1.1billion results.
To make it, all you need is flour, eggs, milk and sugar – the same as you would for traditionally sized pancakes – and something to squeeze the batter into tiny discs on a hot frying pan.
A batch of chocolate M&M pancakes created by Miami food blogger Sam Schnur aka The Naughty Fork, on the frying pan (left) and in a bowl (right) ready to be eaten like cereal
A bowl of pancake cereal with chopped banana and lashings of Nutella, a popular choice of topping
Videos show some using piping bags and squeeze top sauce bottles, and others trying makeshift devices like water bottles with holes bore into the caps.
Once cooked, the minuscule pancakes can be topped with banana, strawberries, Nutella, butter, maple syrup or other sweet sauces.
Toppings can also be cooked into the batter, like Miami food blogger Sam Schnur did with a packet of chocolate M&Ms.
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