Angela's Test Kitchen - Granola

So it's been almost 2 years since I've made granola. I made it several times when I lived in Alexandria, VA. Not sure why I haven't gotten around to doing it in a while, it's really fast to get ready. Perhaps it's because it  takes a lot of ingredients that I don't normally have on hand.

This batch is for me, though I do like the idea of making jars of granola for Christmas presents. I like this idea. Hmm... Or making these jars...

  

Back to the actual granola. I got the base recipe off of allrecipes.com. This will be a theme of this blog, I'm sure. Here's what I actually did

Ingredients

• 6 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup oat bran
• 1/2 cup unsalted sunflower seeds
• 1/2 cup sesame seeds
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds
• 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
• 1/2 flax seeds
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup dried cherries, cause I'm from cherry country

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
In a large bowl, stir together the oats, oat bran, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds and almonds. 

drinking a beer while making granola is not a bad idea

In a separate bowl, mix together the oil, honey, boiling water, brown sugar, salt and vanilla. Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients, and stir until evenly coated. Spread in a thin layer on a large baking sheet. (takes 2 sheets) I put parchment paper down first.

Now the recipe I used said Bake for 60 to 90 minutes in the preheated oven. Stir every 30 minutes, until lightly toasted and fragrant. But since I had 2 baking sheets of granola and starting making this at 9:30pm on a school night, I decided to put both of the trays in at the same time. The bottom one was already very burnt by my 30 minute check in. The top sheet was a bit too dark on the edges but not burnt. Next time, I'm going to do one sheet at a time and stir about every 10-15 minutes. The total bake time was only about 40 minutes. 

After it's baked you can add your dried cherries or other dried fruit. I'm guessing at the amount to put in. One time I made it and the fruit didn't taste the best by the time I finished eating the batch. I think I'll keep separately and add a bit to each bowl.

 the good batch

It was Angela's test kitchen tonight! Hopefully by Christmas I'll have it down just right. The granola isn't very sweet, I think some of my friends might like it that way, others might want to add more brown sugar or honey for them.

 the perhaps a bit overdone batch

I found a website that analyzes recipes and this is what it said for my granola. It not 100% accurate but I think it's interesting, none the less. The serving size should be about a half a cup.