In the meantime, I wanted to share with you my homemade granola recipe! I have had people ask me for it before, but shame on me, I haven't passed on the recipe. I've been meaning to make it for a while now, but haven't had any honey on hand until we went shopping yesterday.
Now, before I get to the goods, I thought I would share why I make it instead of buying it. Granola can get a little pricey to buy or to make, if you add a lot of the dried fruits and nuts. I like to make it very basic - just oats, coconut, honey, and oil. If we happen to have raisins or dried cranberries, I'll throw in a few when I actually pour myself a bowl rather than mix them into my granola. This way I can incorporate what fresh fruit we might have (say blueberries or bananas?), and not use all of our dried fruit just on granola.
Oh, did I mention that I l-o-v-e granola? and so does my husband.
When we lived in the "city" (meaning in this case that we had a WinCo in our neighborhood and we both worked full-time jobs), I used to buy granola in bulk for about $3.25 a pound. Maybe I am weird, but I am very cheap when it comes to cereal. I don't tend to spend over $2 on a box of cereal, unless it's my birthday. Now that we are on WIC, I only bring home two boxes of cereal a month - I go for the two largest boxes of Cheerios I can buy (for some reason, I get a great delight out of a huge, brand new yellow box of cereal), which our son mostly consumes. I can't bear to spend upwards of 3.50 to $4.30 on a 12 oz. box of granola. I recently found my ingredients at a reasonable price and, using a method I learned in baking school, I "bowl costed" it out.
If you find your main ingredients for the following prices:
48 Oz. container of Rolled Oats $1.99
14 Oz. bag of shredded coconat $1.49
24 Oz. Jar of Honey $3.99
48 Oz. Jar of oil (vegetable or oil) $2.99
You will have 48 oz. of homemade granola for roughly $3.50; $1.16 per pound or $.07 per oz. I don't think I've ever seen granola for less than $3 per pound out here...I could be wrong, and of course, this is without any frills added, but I still say it's worth it to make it.
Alright! This is an extremely simple recipe. It takes only a matter of minutes to mix the ingredients, and about 20 minutes to bake - depending on how crispy you like it. This is a fairly hearty or rustic granola, which is why I like it. If you like the sweeter more clustered granola, this might not be for you.
I have provided a PDF for download here - this will be available in my "projects and tutorials" page for quick reference later. The recipe in the .pdf includes nuts and dried fruit ratios also.
Ingredients:
4 Cups Rolled Oats
2 Cups Shredded Coconut
3/4 Cup Oil (Vegetable or Olive)
1/2 Cup Honey
Prepare your pan: I usually like to use parchment paper or if I owned one, a silicone pad, underneath my granola when I bake it. I have an old pan I use for everything, so if I don't have parchment paper I just put it straight on my pan. If you want to protect your baking sheet though, I would recommend using some sort of barrier like parchment paper. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
Get a big bowl down and mix all your ingredients together.
Tip: If you measure the oil and then use the same measuring cup for the honey, the honey will slide right out and you don't have to worry about a sticky mess!
*if you are adding nuts, add those in at this time as well (check out my .pdf for ratios)
Spread out the granola as evenly on your pan as you can and put in the oven. Check on it occasionally - once it starts turning golden, flip the granola as best you can to make sure it bakes evenly. Usually the granola on the edge of the pan will toast the quickest, so be sure to keep an eye on it and spread as needed.
Once your granola is mostly crispy (it will feel a little heavy still when you flip it with the spatula) and golden (a few bits will probably get a little burnt), remove from oven and let cool.
If you are adding dried fruit to your granola, scrape granola into a bowl and mix in dried fruit. If not, simply scrape granola off into a canister or ziploc bag for storing.
Enjoy with yogurt or milk for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or desert!
2 comments:
Yum! I'm excited to try this! :-)
I made homemade granola once, it was amazing! I haven't been able to find the recipe though, so I'll have to try yours :) Have you made granola bars with it before?
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