Grape-Nuts ice cream is like breakfast and dessert in one creamy, crunchy bowl

Grape-Nuts: they aren't grapes, nor are they nuts. The high-fibre cereal is made from a large baked whole wheat and malted barley-based biscuit that's ground and re-toasted.

Developed in 1897 by C.W. Post, Grape-Nuts are one of the earliest packaged breakfast cereals. 

Often generically referred to as "grain-nuts," name theories on the Grape-Nuts website speculate that Mr. Post believed glucose, which he called "grape sugar," formed during the baking process, and that perhaps the cereal got its name from its resemblance to grape seeds.

At some point, someone somewhere thought to stir the malty nuggets into vanilla ice cream, possibly as a cost-saving measure as the grainy cereal would have been more inexpensive than chopped nuts.

As with so many dishes, there isn't a clear origin story — some say it was first created by chef Hannah Young at The Palms restaurant in Wolfville, N.S., in 1919. 

Grape-Nuts ice cream has since become hugely popular in the Maritimes, and is also commonly made and much-loved in Jamaica, as well as in parts of the Eastern United States. 

In Calgary, at Simply Irie Caribbean Cuisine across from Western Canada High School, owner Fay Bruney came across boxes of Grape-Nuts while visiting Florida, brought them back home and now sends them to MacKay's Ice Cream in Cochrane.

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MacKay's custom-makes Grape-Nuts ice cream for her eatery, where you can buy it by the scoop. It's chewy, malty and delicious — like breakfast and dessert, all in one bowl.

Homemade Grape-Nuts Ice Cream

To streamline the process, simply soften store-bought vanilla ice cream and stir in a handful of Grape-Nuts. 

Grape-Nuts:

½ can or bottle beer or stout

½ cup (approximately) buttermilk

1¾ cups whole wheat flour (or a combination of whole wheat, barley and/or oat flour)

½ cup packed brown sugar

½ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

Ice Cream:

1 cup 35% whipping cream

1 cup half and half

½ cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla 

To make the Grape-Nuts, preheat the oven to 350 F and reduce the beer in a small saucepan or skillet to about half its volume. Pour into a measuring cup and add enough buttermilk to make one cup.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking soda and salt. Stir in the beer-buttermilk mixture just until combined, then spread it about ¼-inch thick on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes, or until firm, dry and golden.

When cool, break or chop into small nuggets (some recipes call for putting it through a meat grinder) and return to the sheet. Turn the oven temperature down to 275 F and bake for another 15-20 minutes, until even more dry and toasty. 

To make the ice cream base, whisk together the creams, sugar and vanilla. Freeze in the bowl of an ice cream maker until frozen — it will still be soft enough to stir in as many Grape-Nuts as you like (or pour them in through the feed tube as it churns).

Transfer to a container and freeze until solid.

Makes about one litre.

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