Granola

I was drawn to the following recipe due to 2 reasons, a complete lack of interest in commercial breakfast cereals, to the point I would often skip breakfast and a wonderful year for apples on my tree leaving me with ALOT of apples to find a reason for being. So I made a simple apple sauce out of them, jarred them up and hopefully they will keep me going in this stuff, which I can face quite happily each morning, for quite a while.

The recipe was found in Nigella Lawson's Feast book you can find it here

450g rolled oats

120g sunflower seeds

120g white sesame seeds

175g apple compote or apple sauce

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

120g brown rice syrup or rice malt syrup, or failing that, golden syrup

4 tablespoons clover honey or other runny honey

100g light brown sugar

250g whole natural almonds

1 teaspoon Maldon salt

2 tablespoons sunflower oil

300g raisins

Mix everything except the raisins together very well in a large mixing bowl.

Spread this mixture out on two baking tins and bake in a gas mark 3/170°C oven, turning over about halfway through baking and re-distributing the granola evenly during the baking process. The object is to get it evenly golden without toasting too much in any one place. This should take around 40 minutes.

Once it's baked, allow to cool and mix together with the raisins. Store airtight.

I don't stick to the ingredients list, dessicated coconut is often substitited for the sesame, or a combo of both, a mix of nuts is often used and sometimes some puffed rice cereal is substituted for a bit of the oats to give a lighter effect. Whatever use this as a base to work off and you can concoct your own 'favourite' granola.