Friday Food: Crunchy Granola Sweet
Friday, 09 May 2014
Well, this is a novelty, Friday Food on Friday. Today I made something simple, but delicious. If my mum lived closer, I would give her some for Mother's Day on Sunday: definitely later in the year when she comes to visit. I put a cup of granola in a cellophane bag. No ribbon, but I had a tinsel pipecleaner.
This is an easy granola recipe, you don't need seven varieties of seed and five kinds of nuts and three things from the special health food store - not that there is anything wrong with that, but I can cope really well with something simple right now.
This recipe is inspired by the one I saw here. I used mainly maple syrup as my sweetener, with just a spoonful of lightly flavoured honey as MrsDrWho isn't a honey fan and this is for her. I bought dried blueberries and cranberries in town and the rest was easy. It makes me happy to bake something when I know where all the ingredients come from, and there are no weird food numbers or additives.
The only caveat is keep a watchful eye on the granola once it is in the oven. It went from not toasted at all, to reasonably toasted, in a few minutes. I had two trays which I swapped and turned at 5 and 10 minutes and it took 15 minutes in all to cook.
I added some chopped dark almond chocolate when the granola cooled. Keep it in an airtight container, if you can: it is very moreish.
Crunch Granola Sweet makes 3-ish cups
- 2 cups of whole rolled oats, not the quick or cut kind
- 1/2 cup slivered almond or any nut you prefer
- 1/2 cup shredded coconut
- 1 cup dried blueberries, or again whatever you prefer
- 2 tbspn neutral vegetable oil, eg sunflower
- 2 tbspn honey
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate, chopped
Preheat the oven to 180*C. Mix the oats, nuts and coconut and then add the berries.
Mix the oil and the honey and then pour over the dry ingredients.
Mix really thoroughly. You need to coat every oat, nut and berry. Taste the mixture to make sure it is to your liking and you can add a little more honey if you need to.
Spread on a tray, or two, lined with baking paper. The granola should be spread out in a thin layer.
Bake for 5 minutes, then stir and turn/ swap trays. Do this at the 10 minute mark, and 15 minutes if you need to. Keep an eagle eye on the granola as it can easily catch and burn. The centre picure shows the granola toasts more quickly at the edges and where it is thinner. In the last picture it is much more evenly browned, and this is what to look for.
Remove from the oven and cool on the tray. When cold, you can add some chocolate if you wish.
Serve the granola with milk, or yoghurt and fruit, or eat straight from the container as a snack.
Hi Cindy,
This sounds nice, although I would omit the chocolate for breakfast. Have you seen Farmer Jo's muesli from up here. http://farmerjo.com.au/collections/muesli
The burnt fig and almond is especially nice and I have also tried another imported brand with lots of maple syrup in it. Definitely not cheap, either of them, Farmer Jo retails for around $15 a small bag.
Posted by: Jan | Monday, 12 May 2014 at 02:01 PM
I make a similar muesli/granola (although I've been a bit slack lately and haven't made it for a while) and it is DELICIOUS! I agree with your tip about watching it carefully in the oven, it really can burn quite quickly. And I found it cooked a bit even once out of the oven.
I LOVE your addition of chocolate! Inspired!
Posted by: RoseRed | Tuesday, 13 May 2014 at 09:30 PM
Yummo, this sounds delicious.
Posted by: Cakelaw | Thursday, 15 May 2014 at 12:31 PM