‘Pina Colada’ Toasted Almond & Coconut Granola
This is my ‘go-to’ granola and one what I not only make often but I use to sell it when I ran my commercial whole-foods kitchen back in the day.
Its packed full of PROTEIN & FIBRE making it an excellent plant-protein source.
I am not a breakfast person and I have never been, there is something about eating in the morning that feels intrusive to me, like I just want to let everything settle a bit.
So why granola you might ask, well, I feel granola is not exclusively for the mornings, but rather I think it’s great late afternoon as a so called ‘pick me up’. And here is another thing, there should really not be any rules on what should ‘go with’ granola, I think a fistful on its own is perfectly acceptable as is serving it with good yogurt and seasonal fruit.
As I am sticking with no rules, granola should really be the perfect dish to make with what you have at home in fact its actually made for those half eaten packets of nuts and seeds that no one seem to finish.
I do think that what sets a homemade granola apart from the supermarket ones is the amount of sugar and the ratio of nuts.
Supermarket Granola is NOT good for us:
Shop-bought granola tends to be have illegal amounts of sugar in them, normally around a 1 1/2 teaspoon of added sugar per two tablespoons of granola. They normally contain palm oil (because it’s cheap), sulphur dioxide (extends the shelf life), food additive TBHQ (do we really want to eat this?) and corn starch (to keep it cripsy). There will be off course some shop-bought granolas that will be better than others but it’s so easy to make, its really a no brainer.
'Pina Colada' Toasted Almond & Coconut Granola
Equipment
- 1 food processor to blitz nuts & dates
Ingredients
- 1 Cup Almonds
- 1 Cup Cashews
- 1 Cup Macadamia Nuts
- 1 Cup Pecan Nuts
- 1/2 cup Brazil Nuts
- 1/2 Cup Sunflower Seeds
- 1/2 Cup Pumpkin Seeds
- 1 Cup Coconut Flakes
- 1/2 Cup Desiccated Coconut
- 1 Cup Dates pitted
- 1/4 Cup Coconut Oil
- pinch of salt
- 5 tbsp Chia Seeds (great for adding fibre but optional)
- 1/4 cup Hemp Seeds (great for adding fibre but optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180c. If the dates are on the hard side, soak in a small amount of boiling water for 30min with the water 'just' reaching the dates.
- In a small saucepan heat the coconut oil until melted.
- In a food processor pulse the nuts (not seeds) to a rough chop (I like big pieces!) - add to a large mixing bowl. To the bowl, add the sunflower & pumpkin seeds as well as the coconut flakes and desiccated coconut.
- In the same food processor, blitz the dates with a little of the date water to form a smoothish paste (2-4 tablespoons), this will take a few minutes, scraping down and whizzing as you go - add to the mixing bowl along with the coconut oil and a very tiny pinch salt. Mix well with your hands or spoons, it's okay to have small clumps but you want the mixture to look wet/damp.
- Line two baking sheets and spread the mixture evenly on the trays, making sure the mixture is in one single layer. Bake in the oven in 10 minutes segments, before turning and scooping the granola from the outside – towards the middle (as the outside will brown quicker). Keep on setting the alarm and baking in 10 minute segments.
- Once the granola starts to take on some colour, check every 5min, it's at this stage that the granola runs the risk of burning. Once golden remove from the oven to cool completely before adding the optional chia and hemp seeds once cooled.
- The mixture will firm up as it cools down. TIP: If it’s a rainy day, I switch off the oven, wait till the oven cools to 100c and leave both trays in the oven to dry out overnight.