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Wednesday 17 December 2008

Granola Trifle - by no means a trifle


As Y has put it so well, I have been on the longest short trip ever - and now that my in-laws are back in Germany and the most urgent of my work projects are finished, I find myself with only one batch of Christmas cookies baked and only one present bought so far - and Christmas is only a short week away...
Anyway, let's get back to the riddle: Tanna was pretty close, however, it's not a pecan, it's an almond! That said, the following recipe contains pecans as well as you can see..;-)

When thinking about the ending year 2008 in food-related terms, one thing comes to my mind: it was the year of the seemingly endless quest to make my own granola. Sounds like a pretty simple affair, doesn't it? Well, I'd better not say how many batches of substandard granola I had to eat before finally coming up with the winner recipe. Not that there aren't enough tried-and-true recipes for this breakfast staple out there. There are plenty and I've googled for them all.

But when something looks so deceptively easy to do, I can't help myself but tinker with every single one of them. Which resulted in many batches of either overcooked, not-so-tasty or just plain bad granola. In the end, I loosely based my recipe on the two granolas you can find at Butter Sugar Flour; and at long last, I finally figured out how not to burn my granola with my very uneven oven, as well as how not to make it either too dry, too wet, too sweet or not sweet enough.

Once that was done, I could finally reward myself with a beautiful granola trifle - inspiration courtesy of Zarah Maria - with homemade quark and store-bought apple sauce. Hey, there's only so much you can do yourself at a time...

My Granola

The dry ingredients

3 cups of rolled oats
1 cup of almonds, partly chopped
1 cup of pecans, partly chopped
2 tsp of cinnamon

The wet ingredients

1/4 cup grape seed oil (or any other oil of your choice)
1/2 cup runny honey
1/2 cup apple sauce
2 tbsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt

1
Mix all the dry ingredients in a big bowl.

2
Lightly heat the wet ingredients in a small pot and stir to combine. Mix into the dry ingredients.

3
Fan-bake at 120 degrees Celsius for an hour until golden and crispy. Don't forget to stir every 10-15 minutes.

Keeps in an airtight container for several weeks.

The source
Inspired by Butter Sugar Flour

7 comments:

Y said...

Welcome back! (I think I must've said this to you at least 4 times this year, if not more! ;P) Goodness me that trifle looks amazing. What a fabulous photo! And granola.. I think we all love it, but most of us are too lazy to make our own, despite how easy it is to whip up. It makes the ideal gift though, Christmas or otherwise. :D

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

By no means a trifle indeed!
Home made quark is fascinating, I've done it once and must do again. I loved having the whey around for baking bread as much as I loved the quark!
Homemade granola is so out of site better than anything you can buy. Sounds like you've had a real adventure with it.
I like almonds much better than pecans anyway.

Cookie baker Lynn said...

I've been on a granola making jag, too. Yours looks delicious! So glad you're back.

Eva said...

Y - I feel soooo embarrassed cos you're so right! Let's blame all the weddings, shall we..;-)

Hi Tanna, I like the whey for bread making as well (sometimes I drink it, too, but wouldn't be able to down it all, no matter how good it is for you).
Something tells me I'll keep on experimenting with granola, hopefully without burning it..;-)

Eva said...

Thank you, Lynn! I really admire you for posting so much more regularly than I do...

Nora B. said...

Eva,
this is the only trifle I would eat I think. gorgeous!

I've made different combinations of granola as gifts. It is so pretty when it's placed in a jar.

Nora

Jennifer said...

Beautiful!!!