What a simple delight! I love granola. So does my family. I think we could eat a pound of granola every day. But we don’t want that going to our waist lines. So we’re limiting the kids to 1.5 small bowls per day. I’m not sure how much that is by weight; someday I’ll weight it.
I found a couple of recipes on the internet and tried one. Being a guy, I didn’t follow the instructions and made it up as I went along. I tossed in a little of this, a little of that. I didn’t like the amount of oil one particular recipe had, so I put in less. I also didn’t like the amount of sweetener (honey) it had, so I put in less of that too. But I wanted chocolate chips in my granola. SO in went a handful or two.
We really need smell-o-vision. When this was baking, it was like I was visiting a chocolate factory! When it was done, it was so hard to resist warm granola.
The only problem that I had, not that it was a problem at all, was that the chocolate chips all melted. It turned out a tad too sweet for my taste, so next time I will reduce the honey keeping in mind the chocolate chips are sweet.
Doneness: To check for doneness, I watch the color of the granola. At 45 minutes, some of the edge pieces will start change to a darker color. At 60 minutes, some of the edge pieces may start to burn. That’s when it’s done. Just before it starts to burn. The granola will be soft and not crunchy, but it will get crunchier as it cools.
UPDATE: Now that I have been making this for a while, I’ve changed the recipe by adding some additional ingredients. The basics remain the same though. Check out the updated recipe.
UPDATE: I changed the original canola oil to coconut oil. This is because canola is NOT good for our health. Canola is most likely genetically modified, and the processing used to make canola oil makes it rancid (oxidized). Also the most common methods of processing canola uses hexane, of which there is likely some residue hexane in the resulting oil.
- 6 cups old-fashioned oatmeal
- ½ c nuts (almonds, or walnuts, or whatever you like)
- ½ c honey
- ½ c oil (I used organic virgin coconut oil)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- Mix dry ingredients together.
- Mix wet ingredients together and pour over the dry ingredients.
- Mix to coat the oats.
- Bake at 325 degrees for about 60 minutes, turning the granola over every 15 minutes. Start checking for doneness every 5 minutes from 45 minutes onward. Doneness can be seen as some of the granola starts turning brown.
- Note that the granola in the oven will be soft. It will get crunchier as it cools. If you want crunchier granola, it will probably be 60 - 75 minutes.
