Making granola at home terrified me for a long time. For some reason I thought it would take forever to make, or that it wouldn’t be as good as store-bought.
I also had no idea what a good granola recipe looked like; I couldn’t just glance at any recipe online and judge whether it would work out or not.
This all changed a couple of years ago when I tried the peanut butter and chips granola recipe from Have Cake Will Travel (havecakewilltravel.com). A beautiful thing happens when you follow food blogs: after you’ve tried enough of someone’s recipes, and have had positive results, you come to trust them. So much so that you can try things that may have scared you in the past.
So I took the plunge, and I’ve been making my own granola ever since.
I’ve experimented with a ton of different flavours and combinations of ingredients, and this recipe is by far my favourite. Possibly because it’s granola and caffeinated, possibly just because it’s delicious.
So try it out. Go ahead and change up the nuts or dried fruit, if you like, or add some chunks of your favourite chocolate once it has cooled for an amazing dessert (or breakfast).
Espresso Granola
Ingredients
Dry:
3 cups rolled oats
3 pinches sea salt
4 tbsp finely ground espresso
3/4 cup pecans
2/3 cup dried cranberries
Wet:
3/4 cup honey (or a mix of honey and brown rice syrup)
1/4 cup light or neutral tasting olive oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
Directions:
Preheat oven to 300ˇ F.
Mix together the dry ingredients (except the cranberries) in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and mix thoroughly. Now spread the mixture out onto a parchment-lined, rimmed baking sheet. Bake for approximately 40 minutes, stirring and checking every 10 minutes. When the granola has been baking for 30 minutes, check and stir every five minutes after that. The granola will crisp up once it’s cooled and out of the oven. You can tell it’s done by the amazing smell, and normally by its golden colour, but with this recipe the espresso prevents you from seeing that. Once cool, stir in the dried cranberries.