Cardamon olive oil granola

I’ve been on a crazy granola kick lately. So much so I’ve been buying jumbo oats by the 5kg on our subscribe and save, and our house has such thing as a Only On Weekends cereal rule. We both dodge this one by conveniently not counting non-breakfast servings, or handfuls grabbed on the fly, the latter of which this granola is astoundingly good for.

It’s incredible what a bit of salt does for a mainly sweet thing, somehow it transforms something I’ll generally leave or moan about it being too sweet, into a rave-review repeat recipe I’m diving into upon each passing. I’m a bit of a salt fiend, but this recipe doesn’t over-do it. In any case your cookies need a little salt to cut the sweet too, believe me. Olive oil is a another weird one for a sweet breakfast cereal, but I urge you to try it over subbing for a flavourless oil (e.g. sunflower oil, refined coconut oil) which would work equally well, but you would certainly miss out not trying the olive version at least once. We go as far as to use Extra Virgin Olive Oil, for a big flavour impact. Go light if you wish, or half-and-half, I’ve done all on occasion and it comes down to preference. This is something I stuck to from the original recipe I’ve been switching up to my own granola fantasies for a while. There are more than a few variations on http://orangette.net/

If cardamom conjures only Indian recipes in your mind, I hope you’ll find this opens you up to the amazing idea of putting cardamom in sweets. I really got put onto the idea through my recent addition and new favourite on my recipe book shelf, The Homemade Vegan Kitchen. Miyoko uses cardamom in her sweet pastry dough, and it’s fantastic. I can’t wait to have an excuse to make it into a chocolate babka again, cardamom and dark chocolate are a great combination.

I smash the heck out of my hazelnuts in a bag with a rolling pin. It works well when I’m feeling too lazy to set up the food processor.

Of course the cardamom is completely optional, cinnamon is another one we like. Equally, the maple syrup can be easily subbed for brown rice syrup (which is cheaper, but has none of the flavour), or any other similar natural liquid sweetener, this is one of those recipes you can keep playing with. This is a fairly large batch, and you will need two shelves in your oven to bake it all at once. Sometimes I’ll up the batch to 900g of oats, but demand is getting crazy in our household so I’m only time-saving. Just as easily you could half this recipe and fit it all on one tray.

Cardamon Olive oil Granola

600 g jumbo oats

150 g unsweetened coconut flakes

100 g pecans + 100 g hazelnuts + 100 g cashews + 100 g walnuts, roughly chopped

2 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cardamom (optional)

240 ml  maple syrup (or brown rice syrup)

160 ml olive oil

150 g mixed raisins and cherries (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 150C
2. Mix the oats, coconut and nuts, salt, and cardamom in a large bowl until salt and spices are well distributed. (Do not add the raisins, these are added after baking).
3. Mix the maple syrup and olive oil, then add to the dry ingredients. Mix well (with hands if you don’t mind getting sticky) until everything is well coated.
4. Distribute the mixture over two shallow pans lined with greaseproof paper, do not pat down, but allow it to collect into clumps.
5. Bake for 45-55 min, turning the granola over gently every 10-15mins. Remove from the oven when toasted golden, and allow to cool on the trays.
6. Once cool, add the mixed raisins and cherries if using. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for 2-3 weeks.