Granola

Recipe #1

You can make granola bars from this recipe very easily. Just add some flour and eggs (or substitute) to the mixture.

Ingredients

Ingredients are very flexible. You can omit most things.

• Rolled Oats 3cups
• Sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and/or 1 cup (total)
• Pecans, walnuts, slivered almonds, and/or cashews 1 cup (total)
• Shredded coconut 3/4cup
• Brown sugar 1/4cup (or slightly more)
• Maple syrup 1/4cup (or slightly more)
• Vegetable oil 1/4cup
• Salt 3/4tbsp
• Raisins 1cup

Preparation

1. Mix the first 5 ingredients.

2. Mix maple syrup, vegetable oil, and salt.

3. Mix 1 and 2 (if making bars, add half the amount of oats of flour and one egg). Spread thinly on cookie sheet.

4. Bake at 250F for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Stir every 15 minutes.

5. Mix in Raisins after baking.

Recipe #2 (uses discard sourdough starter)

This one uses discard ("spent") sourdough starter. The addition gives it a much more "spreadable" texture prior to baking and you can cut the granola into bars (probably easiest to do this part-way through the baking when you lower the temperature) if you like.

Ingredients (mostly by weight)

• Pre-ferment/sponge
  • 200g discard sourdough starter.
  • 60g water
  • 60g brown sugar
  • 60g flour

• Final mix
  • 40g honey or syrup
  • 40g oil
  • 320g oats
  • 140g nuts
  • 100g seeds
  • 1/2tsp salt

• After-bake mix-in (optional)
  • 100g dried fruit, chocolate chips, or what you will.

Note that the nuts and seeds here are just sort of a placeholder. Aaron usually makes this with a mix of sunflower seeds, shaved coconut, and coconut flakes. Almonds work great and so would peanuts or other nuts if you're into that kind of thing.

Preparation

Pre-ferment

1. Combine all pre-ferment ingredients in a bowl and mix them thoroughly. The texture should be gooey.
2. Let sit for 3-8 hours (overnight?). Room temperature is fine. Depending on the state of your spent sourdough starter, the pre-ferment may bubble, swell, and basically act like a just-fed sourdough starter.

Final-mix + bake + after-bake

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350°F (~175°C).
2. Stir and incorporate honey and oil into pre-ferment mixture. These are your "liquid" ingredients.
3. Combine and stir the other (dry) final mix ingredients.
4. Stir and incorporate the dry and wet ingredients together.
5. Once well-mixed, scoop and spread the raw granola on a baking sheet lined with parchment, silpat, or something else to prevent sticking. It's good to spread it out so it's pretty thin and even.
6. Bake about 20-25 minutes (you should start to see a little bit of browning at the edges).
7. Remove granola from oven and lower the heat to 250°F (~125°C). This is a good time to cut the granola into bars or somewhat smaller chunks, rotate any pieces around to avoid burning and ensure even browning, or make any other adjustments you deem fit.
8. Return to the (cooler) oven and bake for another 30-40 minutes (approximate) until the granola reaches a desirable level of browned/crisped. Remember that it will crisp up further as it cools.
9. Once you're happy with it, turn off the oven and/or remove the pan to allow it to cool.
10. Once fully cooled, you can break up your granola into smaller and still-more manageable chunks/clusters, add any after-bake mix-ins, and store it in an airtight container. It should keep for a while (and usually doesn't last long enough to figure out when it goes bad).