Friday, January 09, 2009

Easy Homemade Granola

My mom used to make granola for us kids when we were young, a fact I never appreciated until I was much older. She had a good recipe that she passed on to my brother, who passed it on to me at some point, and then I lost it. When my copy of Baked: New Frontiers in Baking arrived, I was happy to see in its chapter on breakfast a recipe for homemade granola that looked really good. Yesterday I went out and bought the ingredients for it and made a batch.

Easy Homemade Granola, page 47 of Baked: New Frontiers in Baking

2 cups of rolled oats (I assumed it meant whole oats, so that's what I used)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp + 1 tsp vegetable oil
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup whole almonds
1/3 cup whole hazelnuts
1/3 cup golden raisins
1/3 cup dried cherries (I cannot for the life of me find these anywhere around here, so I substituted dried cranberries)

1. Preheat oven to 325F and line a baking sheet with parchment (or a silicone baking mat).

2. In a large bowl, toss together the oats, cinnamon and salt.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the honey, oil, vanilla, and sugar until completely combined.

4. Pour the honey mixture over the oat mixture. Use your hands to combine well (or use a spoon, as I did), making sure the oats are completely coated with the honey mixture.

5. Spread evenly onto baking sheet.

6. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove from oven and flip with a spatula. Sprinkle on the almonds. Bake for 5 minutes, then remove from oven, flip, and sprinkle on the hazelnuts. Bake for a further 10 minutes, then remove from the oven.

7. Let cool completely. Sprinkle on raisins and cherries. Break up granola with hands and put into an airtight container. According to the recipe, it'll keep for a week.

This tastes amazing! Almost too amazing - it's almost like candy! In fact, it's almost like apple crumble topping, which of course is the best part of apple crumble. I doubt this will be sticking around these parts for a week!

7 comments:

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

It looks delicious! Homemade granola rules!

Cheers and have a nice weekend,

Rosa

Meg said...

I have always wanted to make my own granola! Looks delicious!

Debbie said...

I love granola, I always buy the Trader Joe's dried blueberries version, but I can't wait to try this one. I hear you on the cherries, I had asked someone at Wholefoods about that and they said dried cherries come out in the Spring and last through the summer it is the only time of year to find them.

Wandering Coyote said...

Debbie: I can't even find them then! Someone recommended a mail order place to me but they would come from the States and be way too expensive to justify it.

Joanna said...

your granola looks awesome!! i love little munchies like these that i can just throw into yogurt with some fruit.

you're lucky your mom made you healthy foods!! my mom raised my sister and i on comfort foods... and umm fast food haha thankfully, i started eating better on my own.

Judith said...

This recipe looks similar to the one I used to make except that mine didn't have brown sugar or vanilla in it. Also didn't put such a variety of nuts in it.Do you know how many calories/what size serving for your recipe? I've been making sweet potatoe oven fries the same way I make white potatoe oven fries.The zucchini fries look interesting!Are they crisp or mushy? I've seen dried cherries at Bulk Barn but haven't bought them; I use dried cranberries instead.Probably because they're cheaper with a lot of flavour.

Madam Chow said...

This looks like a great granola. My husband recently informed me that he doesn't care for "hippie granola," and when I asked what that was, he explained that it was a lot of weird seeds and too many dried fruits. This looks perfect!

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