Granola Slices

So D and I went out for breakfast this morning which was yummy as always. But as we were leaving my mother rang and said she would be in the area and would pop by for coffee in our house. She may have asked if I had any biscuits to go with said coffee. Of course I didn’t as we tend to eat them before they even cool but I had been toying with the idea this last week of making granola slices. I race home to see what is in the cupboard. Wonderful, I had everything I needed! Having never made these before (my sister makes amazing flapjacks so never had a need to make my own), I combined ideas from about four different recipes and still just threw in whatever I had.

Now when mum arrived, I mentioned granola and she didn’t seem too enthusiastic, but on leaving, my mother smuggled a few wrapped in kitchen towel into her handbag for later. These are very yummy little granola treats and I highly doubt they will hang around to see another day…

GRANOLA SLICES

I imagine that these are good with really any combination of nuts and dried fruit. I may add pistachios the next time or some dried cranberries. They are healthier than the ones you buy in little packets in the stores and super easy and quick to make. These can also be frozen for lazy days in front of the fire.

• 200 g Gluten free oats
• 50 g walnuts
• 20 g flaked almonds
• 50 g sunflower seeds and
• 20 g mixture of pumpkin seeds and linseeds
• 30 g ground almonds
• 70 g dried apricots, finely chopped
• small handful of raisins
• 2 tbsp desiccated coconut
• pinch of cinnamon
• 100 ml olive oil
• 4 tbsp honey
• 65 g demerara sugar

THE HOW

Preheat your oven to  160 °c  (fan oven).

Put your walnuts and flaked almonds onto a baking tray and toast in the oven for about 10 minutes. This makes them a little more crunchy and brings out their nutty flavour.

Meanwhile put  your oats, seeds, ground almonds, coconut, fruits and cinnamon into a large bowl and toss to lightly coat the fruits so they don’t clump together.

When the nuts are toasted, roughly chop them and add them to the oat mix.

In a saucepan, heat your oil, honey and sugar until sugar is fully dissolved. Add this to the oat mix.

Mix thoroughly so the nuts and fruits are evenly distributed. Line a tin (mine is 20 cm x 15 cm) with baking paper and pack your granola into it. Make sure it’s of even thickness and press the top down a little (I placed a piece of baking paper on top and my hand to press down gently). Pop into the oven for 20-25 minutes until turning golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool fully in the tin before cutting (apparently this stops it from crumbling). Despite advising you to do this, I was cutting the granola while still a little warm and feeding it to D and my mother. Still tasted good.