Nothing beats homemade granola. The fact you can tailor it to suit your own fussy tastes, make it as sweet as you like and eat it straight out of the jar by the handful without judgement is just some of the reasons I love making my own granola at home. Despite having a well-known sweet tooth, I try and keep breakfast relatively healthy. I find most store bought granolas are filled with unnecessary added sugar or hidden nasties, or a lot of them have almonds in them (a nut I am annoyingly allergic to).
I recently had a girl’s weekend away to Bowral and Tara from Vegetaraian bought along a jar of her Toasted Maple Granola. I was in heaven! I’ve made my own granola before and used rolled oats as the base for it. I loved Tara’s recipe because it included a lot of ingredients I had yet to try (or even heard of!) including amaranth and caramelised buckinis. Fortunately these weird and wonderful ingredients are becoming more easy to find in health food stores and even big supermarkets these days. Australian readers, I highly suggest you check out Source Foods – they stock everything needed for this granola.
Ingredients
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 2 cups mixed raw nuts chopped (I used a combination of pecans, cashews and hazelnuts)
- 1/2 cup pepitas aka pumpkin seeds
- 1/2 cup amarath
- 1/2 cup puffed quinoa
- 1/2 cup caramelised buckinis
- 1/2 cup cacao nibs
- 3 tbsp cacao powder
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup coconut oil
- 2/3 cup rice malt syrup or maple syrup
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180℃ and line 2 baking trays with baking paper.
- In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients and mix well, ensuring the spices are well distributed.
- Add the vanilla extract, coconut oil and syrup and stir until all dry ingredients are evenly coated.
- Divide the mixture between the 2 baking trays and bake for 30 minutes, stirring the mixture at the halfway mark.
- Allow to cool completely before transferring to an airtight container.
Naturally I had to give this granola my own spin, so I added in cacao powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and a hint of cayenne pepper to produce an amazingly chocolatey and spicy breakfast treat. I swapped out the almonds for a mix of cashews, pecans and hazelnuts, and I didn’t have any maple syrup which the original recipe called for, so I substituted mine with rice malt syrup.
The smell of this mixture while it bakes in the oven is truly heavenly! Once the granola had cooled down, I broke it up into pieces and stored it in several large airtight jars. I love baking a big batch of this granola regularly so I have many delicious and healthy breakfasts ahead of me.
What’s your favourite breakfast to make at home?
3 Comments
I totally agree – homemade granola is the BEST! And love that you’re making it totally acceptable to eat chocolate for breakfast!
Did I hear, Chocolate for breakfast? count me in
Chocolate for breakfast, always