Home Made Granola

About a year ago I attempted to make some homemade Granola and I think I overcooked it so it was too crunchy and tasted a bit burnt vs toasty.   Recently I've been thinking about it again and after seeing a couple of posts over at Inked in Colour (and another version) I decided I wanted to make some healthy breakfast cereal for my kids vs the boxed stuff you buy at the supermarket.

I shop at a bulk food store in Brisbane called "Simply Good" and my kids are very familiar with this shop as we get all sorts of things there from Bakers Flour to fresh honey and peanut paste/butter which is basically just roasted peanuts put through their machine which squashes the nuts (can't think of a better term) and it's just pure nuts in a paste vs whatever would be in the store bought Peanut Paste version.  It's just roasted nuts pureed. 

I purchased some Organic Oats, Sunflower Seeds, Pumpkin Seeds (aka Pepita seeds), Sesame Seeds, Chia, Linseeds, Almonds, Cashews, Coconut Flakes/Chips and I threw in about 8 dates as well.  You also need Cinnamon, Coconut Oil and Honey and/or Maple Syrup (the real thing, not the flavoured syrup which you can buy).  You could also throw some sultanas in there if you like.

It's a really easy recipe and you can get all of the instructions from the Inked in Colour link above however here's an overview.  Place all your dry ingredients into a bowl and mix together.  Take half of it out and put it in a food processor or Thermomix and pulse the ingredients a few times thereby making the pieces smaller vs making them ground like flour and then return all of this to the bowl where half of the dry ingredients are.  Mix together the Honey/Maple Syrup and the Coconut Oil together and melt either on the stove or in the microwave and once melted mix it into the dry ingredients and stir around and make sure all the ingredients are covered.  It is not a huge amount of liquid for the amount of dry ingredients so it's just a matter of mixing it all around carefully until everything is covered nicely.

I used two large trays with baking paper (parchment paper) and spread out the mix on the trays making sure the level of the ingredients is roughly the same all over the tray so everything cooks evenly.

Turn the oven on to 180 degrees (350F) and when the oven temperature is reached place the trays into the oven and set your timer for 20 minutes (I use my iphone timer) and set it for 20 minutes and also 5 minutes.  Once the 5 minute timer goes off open the oven and move around the ingredients so that what is on top and at the edges gets moved around so everything has a chance to toast.  Then set your timer for 5 minutes again and do that again and two more times and it should be done.  You don't want it to be too toasted/brown otherwise it won't taste very nice so watch your oven and stay close.  I noticed that the ingredients towards the edge of the trays cooked more quickly so I just kept moving that part of it back into the middle of the tray and mixed it around.

Once it's done take the trays out and leave it to completely cool down and then transfer to a lovely glass container.  My glass containers are from Ikea but any container you have on hand is fine.

I gave some to my sister to try out and she had hers with banana and yoghurt and she loved it and couldn't stop eating it.  The kids tried it out and I have to say they weren't that fussed about it which is disappointing.  James had his with yoghurt but he apparently had heaps of it so it was probably too much.  I had 3 heaped soup spoons full in a bowl with a little milk and a touch of sugar and I really enjoyed it.  It's not a cereal where you have a huge bowl full so smaller is better.  It is super healthy and a great start to the day.  James did mention he wasn't that hungry at lunch time because he had a huge breakfast so it is sustaining which is good.  It looks like I may have all this healthy cereal to myself and I don't mind at all.  Perhaps the kids can have some sprinkled on yoghurt for dessert.