Frances (Frankie) Raymond won first place with her Raw Apple Treats.  Frankie tells us her unique take on baked apple muffins was a winner because of the soft sweet texture of the sweet, cinnamon apple and tasty oat cereal combo.

As a bonus, she adds, “They are so easy to make!” The recipe was inspired by a favorite apple cake recipe, and the wholesome goodness of Malt-O-Meal® Honey & Oat Blenders®.  Click here to watch Frankie on Sacramento & Co, on News10!

The second place winner, Kim Reiner, was a first-time contest participant and took home the red ribbon for her innovative Marshmallow & Jell-O® cereal bars.  Coming in third was Gay Ritner with a creative combination of two Malt-O-Meal® favorites, resulting in a chocolatey cinnamon treat that kids are sure to love!

Frances "Frankie" Raymond of Clarksburg with her winning "Raw Apple Treats"

California State Fair Winning Recipes:

Frances Raymond of Clarksburg, 1st place, 2010 California State Fair

“Raw Apple Treats”

Ingredients:

4 cups chopped raw Granny Smith apples
2 eggs
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 cups Malt-O-Meal® Honey & Oat Blenders®
2 cups flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 cup chopped toasted walnuts

Directions:

In a large bowl, mix together apples, eggs, sugar and vegetable oil. Set aside. Place cereal in a plastic bag and slightly crush with rolling pin. In a second bowl, mix 2 cups of cereal crumbs, flour, cinnamon, salt, and chopped walnuts. Add the dry mixture to the apple mixture and stir until well combined. Line muffin pans with papers. Fill each paper about 2/3 full. Sprinkle last 1 cup of cereal crumbs over top of treats. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 30-35 minutes or until done. Remove from oven and cool 5 minutes then remove from pan and cool on wire rack before serving. Makes 18-24 treats.

Kim Reiner, 2nd place, 2010 California State Fair

Marshmallow & Jello-O® Cereal Bars

Ingredients:

6 cups Malt-O-Meal® Honey & Oat Blenders®
3 cups puffed marshmallow cream
1 8-oz package of cream cheese
6 Tbs granulated sugar
1 large box of strawberry Jell-O®

Directions:

In a large bowl or loaf pan, mix the Jell-O® with 2 cups boiling water and one cup cold water. Set in fridge to chill slightly while preparing rest of dessert. In a large bowl, mix the cereal and marshmallow cream until well blended. Press into a greased 9”x13” pan. In a medium bowl, with mixer on medium speed, beat softened cream cheese and sugar until sugar is dissolved. Spread evenly over the cereal mixture. Be sure to spread to the very edges creating a seal of sorts so that the Jell-O® does not run down and get the cereal pieces soggy. Carefully pour chilled. though not set up, Jell-O® over cream cheese layer. Cover and chill 2 hours or until Jell-O® sets up.  Cut and serve.  Keep refrigerated. Makes 24 bars.

Gay Ritner, 3rd place, 2010 California State Fair

Cinnamon Toasters® Coco Roos® Bars

Ingredients:

Bottom layer:

2 cups Malt-O-Meal® Coco Roos® crumbed fine in blender, 1 cube unsalted butter melted.

Top layer:

1 cube unsalted butter softened
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 cups Malt-O-Meal® Cinnamon Toasters®, crushed to 2 cups
2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Use 13” x 9” baking pan.

Bottom layer:
Mix the 2 cups of ground Coco Roos® with the cube of melted butter. Press evenly into bottom of pan. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and cool while preparing.

Top layer:
Beat butter, brown sugar, and sugar into a bowl. Add egg and vanilla and beat well. Combine flour, baking powder and baking soda in separate bowl and mix. Add to mix the 2 cups of crushed Cinnamon Toasters® and 2 tsp cinnamon. Combine the butter mixture with the dry mixture stirring thoroughly.  Press evenly on to the baked bottom layer. Bake 15-20 minutes. Cool. Cut into bars or squares. Makes 20-24 bars.

Click here for official contest rules.

Looking for cinematic inspiration? Check out these video webisodes. A truly odd couple exchanges quirky dialogue and will inspire you to submit your own video for a chance to win!

Stay sensible, cereal shoppers: buy a bag of the great tasting Malt-O-Meal® cereal. They taste great; are kind to the budget, are offered with 75% less packaging* than boxed cereal brands, not to mention fun!

Watch this quirky duo make sense out of cereal packaging!

*75% less packaging based on the net weight of empty consumer packaging per pound of cereal delivered. Even when their box size is smaller, the net weight of their box and empty inner bag is still greater than the net weight of the larger Malt-O-Meal® bag when empty.

Malt-O-Meal announces the official launch of www.bagthebox.com. The new Web site provides a fun way to challenge and inspire consumer thought surrounding excess food packaging and what “75% Less Packaging*. 100% Smarter.” means for the environment.

Site visitors are encouraged to learn more and participate in activities at a number of interactive areas on the site. Visitors are also asked to share their thoughts on the topic of reducing the amount of consumer packaging waste. The goal of the site is to urge consumers to make more conscious choices when purchasing products that will help reduce packaging waste at home. There is a video contest that prompts entrants to address the “75% Less Packaging*. 100% Smarter.” contest theme. Entrants must be members of the Malt-O-Meal Facebook Community to enter the video contest.

A humorous, animated short makes its debut on the new www.bagthebox.com web site featuring an “odd couple” discussing the topic of excessive consumer packaging. Visitors are encouraged to comment and share their insights in the area provided on the new site.
 The Let’s Talk page of the new website addresses what is being said by consumers regarding the topic of consumer packaging waste, as well as feature a live feed of comments surrounding this, and other topics coming directly from members of the Malt-O-Meal Facebook Community. You can join the Malt-O-Meal Facebook Community by visiting: www.facebook.com/MaltOMealFanPage.

*75% less packaging based on the net weight of empty consumer packaging per pound of cereal delivered. Even when their box size is smaller, the net weight of their box and empty inner bag is still greater than the net weight of the larger Malt-O-Meal® bag when empty.

Alberta, age 83, is legendary at the fair for her winning recipes and collection of blue ribbons.  Alberta featured Malt-O-Meal Honey Graham Squares® in her creation as the crust, then added five different varieties of dried fruits in her filling, plus nuts, chocolate and sweetened condensed milk.

“Alberta’s creation was a great combination of fruits and honey flavor from the cereal,” said a judge. “Marvelous!”

The runner-up was Michelle (“Shelly”) Vicari, who is fairly new to competing. Her entry was described as “the perfect appetizer” by one judge. Shelly’s savory dish answered the question, “Does Malt-O-Meal Golden Puffs® and garlic go together?” Yes they do, with her “Golden Croquettes!”

Coming in third place was Linda Greeson with her delicious creation, “Pineapple Spooners Bars” which features Malt-O-Meal top-seller, Frosted Mini Spooners®.

Check out the winning recipes below and let us know what you think!

San Diego Winning Recipes:

Alberta Dunbar, San Diego, CA, 2010 First Place Winner

“Honey Grahams Fruit Medley Squares”

Ingredients:

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons butter
2 cups Malt-O-Meal Honey Grahams, dry cereal crumbs
2 cups packed coconut
1/2 cup each pineapple, mango, strawberries (dried and chopped small)
1/2 cup dried blueberries, whole
1/2 cup dried Craisins®, whole
1 cup white chocolate chips
1-1/2 cups unsalted diced macadamia nuts
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9×13-inch pan with foil overlapping ends and sides. Place butter in pan and melt. Spread Malt-O-Meal Honey Graham crumbs over butter evenly to form crust. Scatter coconut evenly over crumbs and pat down. Combine all fruit and white chips in medium bowl, mix well with a spoon. Scatter evenly over coconut. Sprinkle diced nuts over fruit. Drizzle condensed milk evenly over all. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pan on rack. Remove from pan with foil overlaps. Cut into squares. Yields: 24 to 36 squares

Michelle Vicari, San Diego, CA, 2010 2nd Place Winner

“Shelly’s Golden Croquettes”

Ingredients:

6 cups Malt-O-Meal Golden Puffs cereal
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 1/2 tsp oregano
1 (16oz) package frozen broccoli
1 yellow onion, diced
3 eggs
8 oz. colby jack cheese, shredded
12 oz ham, diced
1/4 tsp black pepper
dash of salt
4 cups oil for frying

Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce:
3 oz Greek yogurt (or sour cream)
2 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tbsp honey mustard

Directions:

Process Malt-O Meal Golden Puffs cereal, garlic, and oregano in a food processor until fine. Set aside. Steam broccoli, process in food processor until finely chopped.  Sauté onion until golden. Add broccoli, mix until combined. Cool. Mix all ingredients together (hold 4 cups of cereal back). Refrigerate for 1 hour. Heat 4 cups of oil in a fryer or deep pan to 350 F. Set up a shallow pan with cereal mixture. Scoop meatball size portions of mixture and roll in cereal mixture coating it well. Place in fry basket. Fry for 4 minutes or until golden brown. Remove and place on paper towel lined plate to absorb any excess oil.

Makes about 30 croquettes.

Serve Hot with Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce.

Linda Greeson, San Diego, CA, 2010 3rd Place Winner

“Pineapple Spooners Bars”

Ingredients:

6 cups Malt-O-Meal Frosted Mini Spooners, crushed
1 1/2 cups butter, melted
1 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, melted
2 cups crushed pineapple, drained well
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup flaked coconut

Directions:

Thoroughly mix crushed cereal, 3/4 cup butter, and 1/2 cup dark brown sugar together in a 13” x 9” baking dish. Press into dish for bottom crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven.

Thoroughly mix crushed pineapple, 1 cup dark brown sugar, 3/4 cup butter, and 1/2 tsp salt together in a bowl. Spread evenly over crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Remove from oven.

Sprinkle with 1/2 cup flaked coconut. Return to oven for 8-10 minutes until coconut begins to brown. Remove from oven. Cool 20 minutes and carefully cut into bars.  Remove from pan to serving dish.

Makes 20-24 bars.

How would you like to be the next top cereal chef? Enter your favorite recipe that includes any Malt-O-Meal® cereal as an ingredient and it will be published in our exclusive online recipe hub!  Previous participants’ recipes will be featured on posters at this year’s fairs. Enter your culinary creation and maybe yours will be our next blue-ribbon winner!

You’ll also have the chance to win gift packages valued at more that $175.  All winners take home ribbons, certificates and aprons.

Click here for more information, including a full list of participating fairs and contact information on how to enter.

Gappa chronicles not only his experience, but also the critical work of American Refugee Committee and the undying hope that lives on in Haiti in an Op/Ed article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. To read more, click here.

John Gappa surveys a landscape of temporary refugee housing in Haiti.

Chocolatey Frosted Mini-Spooners cereal is based on our best selling Frosted Mini Spooners(R) cereal. How to describe Chocolatey Frosted Mini-Spooners… Sensible? Check. Decadent? You bet. We combined whole grain and chocolate to give our beloved cereal a delectable makeover. It is no wonder the “Unwrapped” team was anxious to learn more about Chocolatey Frosted Mini-Spooners!

The episode airing Monday at 9PM Eastern will make a stop at our state of the art production facilities, giving you a behind the scenes tour you can’t find anywhere else. Make sure to check your local listings to find out when “Unwrapped” airs in your town, local listings may vary and we don’t want you to miss out!

Not to worry, if you do happen to miss Monday’s episode, you can check it out after the air date on the Food Network website.

For more information on our new chocolatey cereals, visit http://chocolatecereals.com/

Malt-O-Meal teamed up with famed gaming blog Joystiq.com to serve breakfast to gamers at the PAX East Conference. The Joystiq.com / Blue Berry Muffin Tops Breakfast was born after our friends at Joystiq.com contacted BBMT to express their love for this crunchy, blueberry Malt-O-Meal cereal variety.  BBMT cereal is quite popular “Nerd Chow” (i.e. readily available food with no prep required) among gamers and Joystiq.com enthusiasts. Our friends at Joystiq.com had the brilliant idea of joining forces offline to bring the joy of a Blueberry Muffin Tops breakfast to 600 lucky video gamers and enthusiast attending the conference from all over the world. Disney® also jumped on board to debut the latest release of  their virtual street racing game, Split/Second®. Franchise Design Director, Paul Glancy of Black Rock Studio, UK developed this game and was in attendance at the breakfast to run game demo kiosks and answer attendee questions about the game that will appear on retailer shelves by Fall 2010.

Malt-O-Meal distributed 600 bowls of their Blueberry Muffin Tops variety to eager fans who waited in line for chance to obtain an entrance wrist band, and again for entry into the event hall. While attending the breakfast event, guests were also invited to play Disney game Rock Band 2®, that also made its debut at a previous Joystiq.com event.

For additional information and event coverage please visit the Blueberry Muffin Tops blog at: http://blueberrymuffintops.malt o-meal.com/category/blog/

Malt-O-Meal Company donated over 20 million servings of cereal to people in need through organizations like Second Harvest Heartland ® in 2009.  In an effort to address the growing issue of hunger in America, Malt-O-Meal Co. has positioned its core values around providing quality cereal products at an affordable price, while giving back the communities where they do business.  To keep in line with these family and community-oriented values, Malt-O-Meal has been using both traditional and non-traditional communications to help stimulate an effort to close the growing gap between food donation and those in need of food programs Nationwide.

Corporate food donation programs are widely relied upon by local food shelves and National food distribution centers to meet the needs of the growing numbers of Americans who require supplemental food services. According to a recent study, as the need for food donations continues to rise in the US, the number food donations has decreased in past years. This recent phenomena can be attributed to economic downturn, increased price of food, high unemployment rates and other socioeconomic factors. While many companies make a concentrated internal effort to meet their food donation goals, Malt-O-Meal has also taken their efforts outside company walls and into Social Media channels to make a bigger impact.

Social Media tools like Twitter® and Facebook® are online communication tools used by consumers to share information via a network of online communities comprised of their respective Friends and Followers. These clever tools also enable consumers to engage directly with participating products and brands they use or admire online.  Malt-O-Meal has a growing Social Media community that has helped the Company spread donation messages resulting in 100’s of thousands of cereal donations in 2009 through programs like Million Bowls.

On March 15th, 2010 Malt-O-Meal enlisted the help of well-known bloggers and their respective online communities to chat online about ways to fight hunger in America. Using popular social media platform, Twitter the hosts asked questions meant to discover new ways to help share news about food donation programs, and to gain access to people using Twittter who are interested in making food donations across America. The conversation was lively and the discussion topics revealing. Over 3,000 Twitter messages were generated by participants during this short, hour-long discussion. To put that number in perspective, this Malt-O-Meal discussion was a trending topic on Twitter on point with topics like Haiti and the Winter Olympics during that hour. Malt-O-Meal plans to use the information discovered during this online chat event to help structure future Company food donation programs. You can follow their progress or join in the discussion with Malt-O-Meal online using Social Media.

On Twitter: @MaltOMealCereal

On Facebook: www.facebook.com/MaltOMealFanPage

great quality and great value.

MINNEAPOLIS — March 2, 2010 — Minneapolis based Malt-O-Meal Company, the nation’s largest family owned cereal company, has been invited by Southwest Airlines, the well known low-fare carrier, to help celebrate its first year of service to the Twin Cities.

Malt-O-Meal will hand out samples of its most popular ready-to-eat cereal brands to Southwest Airlines customers at the celebration, to be held Thursday, March 4, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Humphrey Terminal.

Southwest began flying into Minneapolis/St. Paul’s Humphrey Terminal on March 8, 2009, and currently offers 13 non-stop flights to Chicago (Midway), Denver and St. Louis with direct or connecting service to 59 cities.

“Southwest Airlines is thrilled to partner with Malt-O-Meal to help celebrate our one-year anniversary serving Minneapolis/St. Paul,” said Southwest Spokesperson Chris Mainz.  “We LUV to do fun things for our Customers, and we’re grateful that Malt-O-Meal is joining in the festivities by giving away free samples to our Customers.”

“As a Minnesota born and bred company, we’re very happy to congratulate Southwest Airlines and to celebrate their one-year anniversary serving the Twin Cities,” said Linda Fisher, Malt-O-Meal’s Manager of Consumer Promotion. “Southwest has earned a reputation for providing travelers with a terrific experience at a great price. They’ve proven that the more expensive alternatives are not necessarily better, and that’s what Malt-O-Meal proves every day in cereal aisles across the country”.

After 38 years of service, Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) continues to differentiate itself from other national carriers— setting high standards for reliability and customer service at a better value. Southwest Airlines is the most productive airline in the sky and offers customers a comfortable traveling experience. Southwest Airlines is the nation’s largest carrier in terms of originating domestic passengers boarded, currently serving 68 cities in 35 states. Based in Dallas, Southwest currently operates more than 3,100 flights a day and has nearly 35,000 employees system wide.

Founded in 1919, Minneapolis-based Malt-O-Meal Company produces 25 branded ready-to-eat cereals, three varieties of Malt-O-Meal Hot Wheat cereal, and a full line of oatmeal products. In addition to the company’s production facilities in Minnesota, Utah, Iowa and North Carolina, Malt-O-Meal operates distribution centers in Minnesota, Missouri, Utah, Tennessee and Pennsylvania. For more information on the company, including where to buy Malt-O-Meal cereals and how to join Cereal Central (an online community featuring tips on how to save money), visit www.maltomeal.com, become a fan at www.facebook.com/MaltOMealCereal or follow us on Twitter @MaltOMealCereal.

MEDIA INQUIRIES PLEASE CONTACT:

Katie Welch-Peterson

612/720-9374

katiep@newsworthycommunications.com