By I attended a cooking class at Skyterra where we made (well the chef made and we watched while salivating) granola. At the end of the class, they shared their granola recipe. I looked at their recipe and a couple of others and arrived at my version, which combines the best of all three in my opinion.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup chia seeds
- 1/2 cup sliced almonds
- 2 cup pecans
- 3 cups oatmeal
- 1/2 T cinnamon
- 1/4 – 1/2 cup honey
- 1/4 cup cooking oil (melted coconut oil gives the granola a nice tropical vibe)
- 1/2 T vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup dried fruit (optional)
Steps
- Preheat oven to 300° F.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Mix all dry ingredients together (except dried fruit) in large bowl.
- Mix wet ingredients together and then pour over dry ingredients. Mix until well coated.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes until lightly browned, stirring after 20 minutes.
- Mix in optional fruit after baking.
- Cool for 45 minutes.
- Store in airtight container
Thoughts
The first recipe I looked up suggested 2 T of honey which didn’t seem like a whole lot. I landed on 1/4 cup (which is 4 Tablespoons). If you like things sweeter, go for it. I used a 2 cups of pecans, which is a lot, but I had pecans that needed to be used. And I was running through a hand grinder so I wasn’t exactly good at measuring. Other recipes divided the nuts up (and used less nuts) – so 1/2 cup pecans and 1/2 cup walnuts. Many recipes included shredded coconut. While I do like coconut (especially coconut ice cream). I wasn’t inspired to include it as an ingredient. As you hopefully can tell from reading this post, granola recipe lends itself to being personalized by a chef. Exact measurements are not a requirement like in some baking recipes. So if you like coconut, add it. If you’d prefer a chocolate-y granola, add cocoa powder and then mix in chocolate chips! In short, I would suggest you go with your gut.
This time I added dried cranberries to half the tray of granola. Pretty good!
Before:
After:
