Homemade Granola: Maple Pecan with Raisins

My husband has been on a granola kick lately and - in an effort to save money and control what goes in it - we decided we'd try to make our own. Oats, honey, raisins, nuts...I figured it couldn't be too hard, right? Right! It was easy, inexpensive, and yummy! I brought some to work and have been eating it with yogurt. And, it's delicious with milk, of course! It's also nice because a little goes a long way and is very filling.

It's is also one of those recipes that is completely flexible. Since I hadn't made it before, I wanted a recipe to go from so I wouldn't make any major mistakes, so my recipe below is adapted from the wonderful David Lebovitz. My husband made a different version, adapted from Alton Brown's recipe. My recipe (below) has pecans, raisins, maple syrup, and I tried using Lyle's Golden Syrup instead of honey. At first, when fresh out of the oven, it tasted way too apple-cinnamonny, but the next day that strong apple-cinnamon flavor had dissipated and I liked the flavor a lot more. My husband's recipe has almonds, walnuts, brown sugar, and sunflower seeds. He eliminated the maple syrup and coconut and used walnuts instead of cashews from Alton Brown's recipe. We also both thought that recipe had too much salt.

Homemade Granola: Maple Pecan with Raisins

Preheat oven to 300 degrees and set aside a sheet pan (jelly roll pan, with edges). I also love parchment paper - easy cleanup! - so I also used some parchment paper on the pan.

Mix the following "dry" ingredients (except raisins) in a large bowl:
3 c. old fashioned oats (not quick cooking)
2 c. pecans, roughly chopped
1/3 packed brown sugar
approx. 1/8 c. sunflower seeds, more/less to taste (I only used a bit as I'm not too partial to them)
approx. 3/4 t. ground cinnamon, to taste
approx. 1/4 t. ground ginger, to taste
approx. 1/2 t. salt
1 c. raisins, added during last 10 minutes of baking

Mix wet ingredients in small bowl:
approx. 1/3 c. unsweetened applesauce
approx. 1/3 of 1/3 c. Lyle's Golden Syrup (or honey), see below for screenshot of how much I used
2 T. pure maple syrup
2 T. oil (I used safflower)

Add wet ingredients to dry and mix well with a spatula or large spoon until completely covered. It won't seem like enough liquid but it will eventually coat the dry ingredients.

Spread evenly onto a sheet pan and bake for about 1 hour, stirring well every 10-15 minutes. Add the raisins for the last 10 minutes only or they will burn. The raisins will puff way up and look like re-inflating grapes, but they will re-raisin themselves when they cool.

Bake until the oats have dried out and mixture is no longer moist when you stir. Enjoy on its own as a snack, or with milk or yogurt!

my finished granola with pecans and raisins

my husband's recipe included oats, sliced almonds, chopped walnuts,
sunflower seeds, brown sugar

from the beginning...mix and match whichever flavors you like best

I used about 1/3 of 1/3 of a cup of Lyle's Syrup

wet ingredients mixed together

spread onto my sheet pan, ready to bake

add the raisins for the final 10 minutes of baking

baked, cooled, and ready for snacking

also delicious with milk!

Bye for now...

Avid Baker's Challenge: Old World Braided Coffee Cake

I've joined a second baking "club," the Avid Baker's Challenge. The ABCers bake a monthly selection from Flo Braker's Baking for All Occasions. The March cake is an Old World Braided Coffee Cake, page 166.

I was a little nervous about the braided finish and there isn't a picture in the book so I printed out some of the pictures on this artisan bread site to aid me as I went along. I work much better with a picture or two than by just reading - especially with something like this that seems complicated - so I wanted a little photo guidance. To my relief, the braiding actually turned out to be pretty easy (although my first strip was really tiny so I had to cut the last strips off and tuck them under the first two baby-strips).

Overall, this was a pretty easy cake/bread to make (it's called a coffee cake but the texture is more like a bread, in my opinion) and a small piece was very filling...I can't wait to have another slice tomorrow morning with coffee. The dough itself sort of reminded me of a Portuguese sweet bread - which I love - but the filling was a bit too "wet" for my taste and did not really meld or get incorporated into the dough like most coffee cakes I've had. I think that's why it seemed more like a bread with a nutty-cinnamon filling.

So, even though it wasn't quite what I expected in the end, I really liked working with the dough - it was so well behaved and easy to roll out. I think if I try this one again I would skip adding the egg whites to the nut mixture, use a little less cream, and then maybe roll it up like a roulade, slice it and bake it like cinnamon buns and then top it off with some cream cheese icing. I think adding some lemon zest to the dough and lemon juice to the filling would also be delicious.

mise en place for the dough

sticky sticky sticky dough

ready to knead

five minutes (of kneading) is a long time, but it came out nice and smooth

I used pecans instead of walnuts

finely ground

I also added some freshly ground nutmeg

mise en place for the filling

time for a wine break...la dee da...

nuts and cream mixture, waiting for the whipped egg whites

first rise done and ready to roll out
(didn't exactly double in size, but my fingertip indentation remained in the dough)

it was so easy to manage this dough (unlike my poor Kouign Amann)

something went wrong with cutting my first little strip but the rest was easy

all done...cool!

baked to a golden brown

it smells so delicious

yum

time to sample a slice

Bye for now...