Granola

Ingredients:

• 90g butter
• 60g maple syrup (or other wet sweetener, e.g. honey or molasses)
• 30g sugar (do not substitute this with a wet sweetener)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 0.25 teaspoon salt
• 300g oats

• 110g almonds
• 40g Macadamia nuts
• 100g dried apricots
• 50g dried sour cherries (unsweetened)
• 30g dark chocolate >70%

Methods:

• Preheat the oven to 150C. (This sounds low, but at a higher temperature the oats will start burning before they are baked through.)
• On the stove top, heat the butter, maple syrup, sugar, cinnamon and salt until melted and well combined.
• Take off the heat, add oats and mix until every flake is coated.
• Cover a baking sheet with baking paper. Spread the oats in a uniform layer across the baking sheet. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden but not yet blackening around the edges.
• Meanwhile, place the almonds into a different baking sheet and put it in the oven. Once you can smell them, keep an eye on them and take them out once they start changing colour.
• Meanwhile, chop dried apricots, Macadamia nuts and chocolate into small pieces.
• Take the oats off the baking tray with the baking paper and let them cool down while still looking like a flapjack.
• Once the almonds have cooled down, chop them into small pieces.
• Once everything has cooled down, break up the oats into small clumps of crunchy goodness, and mix with sour cherries and pieces of almonds, Macadamia nuts, apricots and chocolate.

Notes: I like to have milled seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, flax and chia) with my granola, but I prefer to add them directly into the bowl, instead if storing them mixed with granola. Needless to say, fresh berries will improve the granola.

Inspired by: Kitchn