Granola

It's been awhile since I've made granola.  I have a recipe that we love, from the book "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter."  But about 6 months ago, I decided to try a new recipe and it was a failure.  Nobody liked it.  And so it sat in the container, staring at me every time I opened the cupboard.  I couldn't bring myself to make our usual recipe while that was sitting there.  Finally, I made several batches of granola cookies which the family DID eat, and used up the cursed batch of icky granola.

And then we were out of maple syrup, so I had to wait until I next saw my folks to get more.  (No, I couldn't have BOUGHT more.  Because when you're spoiled like I am, you get homemade maple syrup from your Dad.  For free.)

After a record-setting maple syrup run, our stock is replenished and I am back in the granola business.  I was all set to make another batch of the usual when I realized that there's a recipe in "The Homemade Pantry" I wanted to try.

I will admit that I halved it, just in case we didn't enjoy it.  I already learned that lesson the hard way!

So, I added the oats and coconut and almonds and sunflower seeds (and wheat germ instead of sesame seeds) into my largest mixing bowl and stirred it all together.

Then, I combined the oil and maple syrup and vanilla and almond extract and added that in, stirring to combine well.

 You can see that even though I cut the recipe in half, I still had enough to cover two baking sheets.

After baking at250 for 90 minutes, and stirring every 30 minutes, we had a nice batch of tasty granola.  With that being said, however, I still prefer our original recipe...  probably because that doesn't require stirring, so it's much easier to just pop it in the oven and forget about it until it's done... and also because I like it when all the ingredients stick together in chunks, and this recipe didn't do that.  It could be because I didn't include the optional Lyle's Golden Syrup, but I'm not searching all over creation for it, either.

I'm not retyping either recipe, but here are links if you want them.

If you want a clumpy granola great for snacking on, try this one from "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter":
http://www.cookiemadness.net/2012/12/granola-for-teacher-gifts-and-make-the-bread-buy-the-butter-review/

If you want a granola that's more for eating with milk as a cereal, try this one from "The Homemade Pantry":
http://www.eatingfromthegroundup.com/2009/12/the-new-granola/

Make both and do a taste test.  Let me know what you think!