Homemade Granola
OK, this is only marginally pastry-chef-related, but still somewhat relevant. Ever been bored with store-bought granola? I am. There’s only so many brands of granola, around here, and I think I’m through with them. I found my favorite, but it’s still boring to buy the same stuff all the time. Since I was out of breakfast food, I decided to do my own granola. A quick google search revealed Alton Brown’s recipe for granola which looked like a reasonable start for my own experiments. With a lengthy shopping list, I went to my local health food store to buy the ingredients in bulk.
Back home, I started the recipe and realized that I only had light brown sugar, and no vegetable oil. Never mind, then, butter tastes better, anyway. So, I melted the butter and mixed it with the maple syrup and the salt. Turns out that 3/4 tsp of salt makes the granola pretty salty! If you like that, fine. If not, cut down the salt to 1/4 to 1/2 tsp.
Here a little picture gallery of my granola at different stages.
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After the roasted granola had cooled off to room temperature, I put it into my shiny new Walmart-granola-dispenser and mixed in some raisins.
Aside from the slight saltiness, the homemade granola tastes great! Even more so with fresh fruit… I can’t wait to experiment with honey, cinnamon, other nuts, etc…
