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Granola from the Wood Fired Oven

Making a tray or two of granola is a fantastic way of using the residual heat of your wood fired oven. It also means you know exactly what’s gone in to your breakfast cereal and you can manage the sugar content to your taste; it no longer has to be weapons-grade muesli, as someone once described it to us!

Granola from the Wood Fired Oven

Granola with Greek Yoghurt & Roast Rhubarb

If you haven’t got a wood fired oven, no problem; you can cook it in your regular oven at about 150C.

When we were involved with Dartmouth Food Festival, we met a remarkable teenager Ella who wanted to become a granola millionaire. She came to the food festival markets for several years and had quite a little business going selling the granola she had made in her parents’ kitchen – it was really impressive to see her in action. She’s now a management consultant advising in, of all things, granola for supermarkets so we made sure to pick her brains before we started testing.

Here are Ella’s top tips –

  • keep the granola in a thin layer in the oven, tempting as it is to pile it up – it’s easier for baking if it’s thinner
  • make sure to turn it several time whilst cooking – this loosens it up , making sure it cooks evenly so nothing get soggy, releasing any moisture
  • it needs to cook until golden brown
  • substituting in some puffed rice helps reduce the calorie count whilst keeping the crunch
  • cool the cooked granola in the tray and then smash it up by hand – great fun and very therapeautic!

Here’s how we made our wood fired granola –

Ingredients

300g rolled oats

150g seeds – we used a mixture of sunflower, pumpkin, sesame and poppy seeds

120g mixed nuts, bashed up if they’re big – almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, whatever you’ve got

120g dried fruit – sultanas, raisins, dried snipped apricots, dried cherries, dried cranberries, again whatever you have

60g coconut flakes

2tbsp sunflower oil

100ml maple syrup

2tbsp runny honey

Oven State/Door Etc

Cool and falling – so around Mississippi 6-7, about 150C

Door – shut

Method

  • Mix together the oil, maple syrup and honey in a large bowl.
  • Add the oats, seeds and nuts and mix everything together. It’s easier to do this by hand so if you don’t like getting too messy, just wear a pair of disposable gloves.
  • Split the mixture between 2 baking trays or roasting tins – you want something with sides so the ingredients don’t spill over into the oven.
  • Bake in the oven with the door shut for about 40 minutes, turning over every 10 minutes or so with a wooden spatula or metal basting spoon.
  • When the granola is golden brown and clumpy, take the trays out of the oven and leave it to cool.
  • Bash any large pieces into smaller bits with the end of a rolling pin – or just use your well-washed hands.
  • Mix in the dried fruit and coconut and when it’s completely cool, store the granola in a large jar or plastic box with a well fitting lid.

Alternatives

  • Use different flaked grains in the granola – rye, barley etc. It’s a good way of using up those random packages in the cupboard
  • Use different dried fruits – dried raspberries or blueberries are lovely and add a good zing
  • Use different nuts or just one kind or none if you don’t like them
  • Add some puffed rice into the cooked and crushed granola which will add volume, reduce the calories and keep the crunch
  • Change the flavour of honey you use from a mild one to a stronger one
  • Sprinkle some ground cinnamon into the mixture before baking – 1tsp will be plenty
  • Use the cooked granola to make into granola bars or flapjacks
  • Use the granola with reaspberries and cream or Greek Yoghurt to make a cranachan style dessert

Granola from the Wood Fired Oven

Serve for breakfast with yoghurt and fruit although ours seems to disappear if and when we need a snack later in the day.

Let us know how you get on

Happy cooking

David and Holly