Homemade Granola

 

The kids like to keep me on my toes (i.e. – ensure that I am never able to finish a meal in one sitting if they are awake), so when I came across this recipe for homemade granola, I knew I had to try it because:

1. Breakfast that you can toss into a bowl and top with yoghurt = win.
2. I had finally found a recipe that would use up the multiple bags of oats I had laying around from when I used to add oats to Yusuf’s bath water to relieve his eczema.
3. This is brilliant for nursing mamas – it really boosts supply and is a great way to start or continue (depending on whether you’ve had any sleep at all) your day.

This was ridiculously easy to make – I can’t believe how much this costs in stores! Here’s the recipe that I adapted from How Jen Does It on YouTube:

You will need:

6 cups of quick oats
6 tablespoons of brown sugar
2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup of honey (I used some wonderful local Oxfordshire honey that we bought at the Willowbrook Farm when we camped there last year)
¾ cup of coconut oil
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
Coconut flakes, cranberries, or any other fruit, nut, seed combination you love.

Preheat your oven to 150 °C. Lightly grease two baking trays, one large tray, or just do it in two batches like I did.

If you’re in a massive hurry, toss the wet ingredients (honey, oil, and vanilla extract) into a mixer and mix until well combined. In another bowl, combine the oats, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt and then pop that in the mixer with the wet ingredients and mix until well combined (on low).

Spread the mixture out onto your sheets and bake for 15 minutes. Stir the granola to ensure it bakes evenly and then put it back in the oven to bake for another 15 minutes. Check every 5 minutes or so – I found I needed the full 15 minutes, but you may need less, depending on your oven – you don’t want the granola to get too brown.

Once out of the oven, allow the granola to cool and then sprinkle in your dried fruit, nuts, seeds or anything else you’d like in there. I used dried cranberries and coconut flakes.

If you try this, I’d love to know what combinations you used – Leave me a comment to let me know!