Granola

the American health-food breakfast: rolled oats and nuts tossed with oil and maple or honey and baked slow until golden and clustered, then tumbled with dried fruit

Origin: The United States

From the journey of Oat.

Granola is an American invention with a nineteenth-century pedigree and a twentieth-century rebirth. It began in the health-reform movement of the eighteen-sixties and seventies, when Dr James Caleb Jackson baked dense sheets of graham flour into a cereal he called 'granula', and John Harvey Kellogg, at his Battle Creek sanitarium, made a similar baked cereal he was obliged, after a lawsuit, to rename 'granola'. These early versions were hard, twice-baked, and austere, foods of the sanatorium rather than the breakfast table. The granola the world now eats, loose clusters of oats and nuts toasted with oil and a liquid sweetener and studded with dried fruit, is a product of the American counter-culture of the nineteen-sixties and seventies, when it became emblematic of natural, wholesome, back-to-the-land eating, so much so that 'granola' passed into the language as a byword for a certain earnest, wholesome sensibility. The method is simple and endlessly variable. Rolled oats and chopped nuts are tossed with a neutral or nutty oil and a liquid sweetener, maple syrup or honey most traditionally, seasoned with salt and often cinnamon or vanilla, spread on a tray, and baked low and slow until deep golden and crisp. The two tricks that separate good granola from a scorched or soft batch are a moderate oven and patience, and a light hand with stirring: left undisturbed for stretches, the mixture sets into the clumps and clusters that are, for most people, the whole point. The dried fruit is added only after baking, since it would burn and harden in the oven. Eaten with milk or yoghurt, scattered over fruit, or taken by the handful, granola is the archetypal wholesome breakfast, and the direct ancestor of the muesli bar and a whole industry of packaged cereals.

Ingredients

Granola

  • 300 g rolled oats (old-fashioned, not instant)
  • 150 g mixed nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts), roughly chopped
  • 50 g seeds (pumpkin and sunflower)
  • 0.5 tsp fine salt
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 90 ml maple syrup or honey
  • 75 ml neutral oil (or melted coconut oil)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

To Finish

  • 150 g dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, chopped apricots)

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 150°C (130°C fan) and line a large baking tray with baking paper. In a large bowl, mix the oats, nuts, seeds, salt, and cinnamon.
  2. Whisk together the maple syrup or honey, the oil, and the vanilla, then pour over the dry ingredients and stir thoroughly until every flake and nut is coated.
  3. Spread the mixture in an even layer on the tray, pressing it down lightly. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, stirring once or twice, until deep golden brown.
  4. Leave the granola to cool completely on the tray without stirring; this is when it sets and crisps.
  5. Once cool, stir through the dried fruit and store in an airtight jar. Serve with milk, yoghurt, or over fresh fruit.

Notes

Granola is a template, not a fixed recipe: vary the nuts, seeds, spices, and dried fruit freely, and swap the oil for melted butter or coconut oil for different flavours. For clustery granola, add a beaten egg white or an extra spoonful of syrup and press the mixture firmly; for loose granola, stir often as it bakes. Rolled oats are essential; instant oats turn powdery and steel-cut stay hard. A little cocoa, orange zest, or crystallised ginger can be added for variety, and toasted coconut flakes (added for the last 10 minutes) are a popular addition.

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