Roasted Hamster

Granola - Some Thoughts and a Recipe, of Sorts

Northern Europeans consider breakfast the most important meal of the day. In fact, most Northern Europeans I know consume more food at this meal than at any other during the day. An average breakfast for my German colleagues when we were on the road always included muesli or granola (the difference is largely in the honey and sometimes in the toasting) with yoghurt, bread with salami, cheese, and/or marmalade, and sometimes eggs. You will notice that, with the exception of the yoghurt and the eggs, this in no way resembles the typical American breakfast. In fact, while it is possible to buy American cereal in Europe, the selection will be limited (though it will always include cornflakes, which I've never understood, as I think that they taste like cardboard). Instead of the average American cereal aisle, jammed full of sugary cereals designed to appeal to kids, German cereal sections (they never take up an entire aisle) consist at least 60% of muesli blends. What is muesli, you ask? It is, essentially, a blend of various grains, nuts, and sometimes dried fruits. They are usually not even toasted and they are not sweetened, with the exception of the occasional muesli that includes chocolate. They are eaten as we eat cereal, with milk, or they are mixed into yoghurt. This last is my preference. Granola, which I rarely saw sold in Germany, is, in principle, the same thing with the addition of toasting of the ingredients and the addition of honey or some other sweetener.

We went to a shop in Cologne that we loved. It was quite literally the smallest shop I have ever been in but it was full of some of my favorite things: spices, high quality pastas (the owner was half Italian), a well curated selection of Eau de Vies and wines, chocolates, oils and vinegars, the most amazing pumpkin seed pesto, and various other odds and ends of excellent quality and amazing taste. The shop owner also had a small espresso machine that turned out a proper Italian cappuccino. We went every Saturday we were in town for a cappuccino and always seemed to leave with something to stock our larder as well. On one particular Saturday, we found a selection of mueslis and a granola from a British company called Dorset Cereals. We bought two boxes and found them to be better than anything we had had to date, so we bought a box each time we went until Casaretto ran out. I didn't see this particular cereal anywhere after that so imagine my very pleasant surprise when I saw it at the Whole Foods in Cupertino. We bought a small box of the honey granola, at the rather steep price of $6 and change. I am in the habit of looking at ingredient lists when I shop, even (and especially) at Whole Foods because a lot of the “natural” foods they sell are no such thing, at least, they aren't what I consider natural. Not only did the ingredients list consist entirely of things I could pronounce, it also gave the percentage of how much of each was in the box. This was important because this meant that I could make my own. And so I did and I do.

The original recipe on the side of the box of Honey Granola by Dorset Cereals is:

My own recipe attempts and variations:

I started with the above basic recipe, though I added dried fruit. I have always had a sort of obsession with dried fruit in my cereal (the healthier varieties, not the sweet ones). It turned out well and it kept well. We took about 3 months to eat it and it tasted as fresh on the last day as it did on the first. Oh, I should note that I purchased the ingredients in bulk and made a huge batch, toasting it all in my largest casserole dish and I then stored it in a Ziploc bag. Then I started to play around with it. I had originally purchased the oat and rye flakes in bulk at Whole Foods but then I found that Trader Joe's sells, next to the oats, a large container of organic mixed oat, rye, and wheat flakes for around $3. This is much, much lower than what I paid for the same in bulk at Whole Foods, so… I added flax and sesame seeds and I quite like them. I experimented with various nuts and fruits. I experimented with maple syrup as a sweetener and then with agave nectar, they were both good, the maple syrup even amazing. Then I read a recipe for granola in Super Natural Cooking and the author, Heidi Swanson, included coconut and hazelnuts. Somehow I hadn't managed to experiment with hazelnuts to this point. I took my modified version of Dorset Cereals recipe and added coconut and hazelnuts and attempted to make granola bars. I ran into a snag though. I put the increased quantity of honey on and then put the pan of granola into the oven to toast everything, which is what I normally do. What I failed to take into consideration is that hot honey melts and then it cools to a brittle substance so we are still eating granola, instead of granola bars. It is the best batch of granola I have made though, so we don't mind.

Below you find what the ingredients and recipe for my modified version of the granola.
Mix the dried ingredients with your hands or a spoon. Pour in honey and stir. If it hasn't clumped into pieces, add more honey until it does. Grease a large cookie sheet or, if your cookie sheet doesn't have sides, a casserole dish. Bake in a 350 F (175 C) oven until golden brown. If you use a large cookie sheet, this should take between 20 and 30 minutes, depending on how hot your oven runs. If you use a casserole dish, it will likely take closer to 45 minutes and you should stir it at least once while cooking. Let cool completely and store in an air tight container. Serve alone, with milk, or, my preference, mixed into yoghurt.

Note: If you want to make granola bars, I suggest that you first toast the dry ingredients (without the fruit) and then add the honey. You may need to use more honey than for the straight granola but you can press it into bars and cut them. I suggest that you store them between layers of waxed paper to keep them from sticking together.

You can substitute any type of grain flake you like or do just one or two. If you have problems with gluten, millet would be a good substitute, as would be puffed rice. Oats themselves are supposed to be gluten free but, if you are full on celiac, you might still want to avoid them because they tend to be processed on equipment that processes grains with gluten. You can add any seed you want. I used sesame and flax because I not only like them but flax, in particular, is a good source of omega 3 fatty acids. You could add chia seeds by the same token (if you are allergic to sesame or mustard seeds, WebMD recommends that you avoid chia as well). Use the nuts you like best. I happen to love the taste of hazelnuts when roasted but walnuts (another good source of omega 3), pecans, etc. would also be good. I don't recommend peanuts though, as their flavor tends to be overpowering when roasted. For the coconut, leave it out if you don't like it and, whatever you do, don't use the sweetened, flaked coconut in the baking aisle. It won't keep nearly as well as the fully dried coconut chips will.

Finally, and most importantly, enjoy!