Baked's Granola

I have a confession to make. Granola is my kryptonite when it comes to keeping a merticulous diet food journal. I can stand over the kitchen sink and put handfuls after handfuls into my mouth. I'm not even talking about late night snacking. This happens at all times of the day. I can't help it. I just love granola so much that I cannot stop myself.

That is the reason why I stopped making homemade granola every weekend. A while back, I got into this nice routine of baking a batch of my maple granola every Friday and it would last me for a whole week. Slowly but surely though, I found that my weekly batch began to run out a little earlier. I sneaked them into my mouth so often that I was eating so much more than I really ought to. One day, I realized that I handily polished off one batch in four days. I had a serious problem and the only way to solve it was to stop cold turkey. So I did and stopped making granola since.

I received my copy of Baked: New Frontiers in Baking yesterday in the mail. This is the cookbook of the famed Brooklyn bakery by the same name. Every recipe, I mean EVERY recipe, looked enticing. I wanted to run to my kitchen immediately (I was at the office when my parcel arrived) and start baking. I held off until midnight when I couldn't resist the temptation anymore. For better or for worse, my pantry was rather low on many baking basics so granola was one of the few things I could bake at the time. It is goooood. Dare I say it is even better than my old standby? Much of the caramelization comes from the brown sugar and honey in the recipe rather than the oil. The subtle undertone of butterscotch in every crunchy nugget is addictive.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Granola

adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking
makes 3 cups which can approximately last me through one sitting in front of a good movie

Ingredients

• 2 cups old-fashion rolled oats
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3 tbsp plus 1 tsp flavourless oil such as grapeseed oil
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/3 cup raw whole almonds
• 1/3 cup raw whole hazelnuts
• 1/3 cup chopped dried apricots
• 1/3 cup chopped dried cherries

Method

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Line a 11x17 baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, toss together oats, salt, and cinnamon.
3. In a small mixing bowl, stir to combine oil, honey, brown sugar, and vanilla. I like to coat my measuring cup with a bit of oil before pouring in the honey. The honey will slide right out.
4. Toss the oats with the wet mixture until thoroughly combined. Go ahead and use your hands! The mixture will be sticky and crumbly at the same time.
5. Spread the oats evenly on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes.
6. Remove pan from oven. Flip and stir the oats with an offset spatula before spreading it out evenly again. Sprinkle with almonds. Bake for 5 minutes.
7. Remove from oven and stir the oats again. This time top with hazelnuts. Bake for 10 to 20 minutes, keeping a close eye after the first 10. You want your granola to take on a nice brown colour but not burnt. Once you take the pan out of the often, you'll notice that the granola is still a bit soft. No worries, it'll crisp up as it cools. However! If you take it out too early, you'll end up with wet granola. Yuck.
8. Cool granola completely before gently tossing in the dried fruit. Store in airtight container for up to one week. Good luck trying to make it last for a whole week.