There are a lot of things that I don't like to eat unless I've made it. In general this includes granola.
Shop bought granola can be way too sweet, and also tends to resemble miniature rocks. But a friend I made at uni told me that she actually makes her own granola, and I've been turning this over in my head for a while now. This also coincided with my finding one of my all time favourite YouTubers: Carly Rowena. Another friend (I can't believe we got to know each other properly so late in the year; she is the only person I've spoken to who knows who Scola Dondo is, and who also works out to YouTube) introduced me to Carly's channel, which I'd only briefly looked at before. Anyway, I won't give you 500 words on my developing hero worship of Carly Rowena, but she makes her own granola too. And she posted a super easy, adaptable recipe on her Instagram a while back. One screenshot later, and I'm making my own granola.
I'll link Carly's basic recipe here (http://www.carlyrowena.com/search?q=granola), but for my first ever batch of homemade miniature rocks I bought dried goji berries, cherries, chunky peanut butter, and pumpkin seeds. I spent my last £10 on this stuff, so this had better taste good.
Now I'm not going to lie: I am incredibly proud of this granola, which is sat cooling in front of me, and I can't wait to eat it. It would probably taste amazing warm too. It filled my kitchen with a rich peanut butter cloud of good smelling-ness, and it's cooling down to develop a wonderful crisp texture, but not of jawbreaker proportions. I'll be developing several more flavour combinations using this recipe, but for now I hope that you all enjoy this one. I can feel a granola making phase of my life developing guys.
Ingredients (one serving = 35g finished product)
- 1 cup oats
- 1 cup almond milk (or any other milk you fancy)
- 1/4 cup dried cherries
- 1/4 cup dried goji berries
- 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
- 1/4 cup chunky peanut butter (I used meridian)
- 1/4tsp ginger
- 1/4tsp cinnamon
- 1tbsp runny honey
Method
- Preheat the oven to 200*c (add 10*c if your oven isn't a fan oven), and line a baking tray with baking paper.
- In a large mixing bowl measure out your oats, and the dried fruit and seeds. Add in the spices, and stir together. Now pour in the almond milk, stir, and then add in the honey, stir again. Finally, add in the peanut butter and mix everything thoroughly to make sure that peanut butter is well distributed.
- Empty this on to the baking paper, and then place the tray into the oven. Turn the temperature down to 140*c; we only began on 200*c to make sure the oven was extra hot to begin with.
- Bake for 15 minutes, remove from the oven and stir to break up into chunks. Return to the oven for 20 minutes more, take it out and stir it again, and then cook for a further 10-15 minutes before turning the oven off. The cooking time really depends on whether your oven is a fan oven or not; simply cook the granola until it is very nearly as crisp as you would like it.
- Stir the granola again and break it up; don't worry if it isn't perfectly crisp yet, as it will crisp up on cooling. We don't want the sort of granola that threatens to send you to the dentist. Place the tray on to a cooling rack and leave your granola to cool completely. I also tipped the granola off of the baking paper, to avoid it becoming soggy.
- Once cool store in an air tight container, in a cool place, for up to 2 weeks. Serve with yoghurt and fruit, or chuck it into a tub to snack on during the day...
Labels: breakfast recipe, cherries, easy healthy recipe, Food, goji berries, granola, healthy breakfast, homemade granola, honey, oats, peanut butter
