Oh my, this is the kind of breakfast I absolutely shudder at when I see it in the supermarket. My contempt for chocolate breakfast cereal, and my resounding ‘absolutely not’ when the children ask for it! But here am I making it. The truth is this is beautiful, and this version is really nutritious too! Actually this wasn’t supposed to be a granola at all, it was going to be snack bars for after school. But for some reason I didn’t make enough wet to coat the dry and the result was snack bars that didn’t stick together, obviously! But thankfully there is always granola… and this is going to be beautiful with some plain greek yoghurt in the morning!
Ingredients:
200g Oats
100g ground almonds
100g desiccated coconut
6 tbsp maple syrup
6 tbsp coconut oil*
3 tbsp cacao powder
Pinch of sea-salt
50g chia seeds
50g raisins
4 medjool dates,chopped
75g dark cooking chocolate min 70% cocoa solids
Method:
1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
2. Mix the dry ingredients; oats, ground almonds, desiccated coconut, cacao powder, salt, chia seeds and raisins in a large mixing bowl.
3. Chop the dates & remove the stones. Mix in to the dry ingredients as if you would with butter so the dates coat themselves in dry ingredients and disperse themselves. Chop and add the chocolate.
2. Add the coconut oil & maple syrup to a pan and melt on the hob.
3. When the cacao / coconut oil is soft enough to pour add it to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly, until all ingredients are covered.
4. At this point I baked my mixture in a brownie tin, 25mins at 180C. The result is a softer granola. However the mixture could be spread more thinly across a roasting tray and stirred every 10 mins (as per the cacao & cardamom granola recipe) so not to burn the mixture.
This mixture fills a large Kilner jar (as above)… serve with milk, oat milk, yoghurt or maybe use as a crumble topping? Pear crumble had crossed my mind earlier… Maybe that’s a soon to be recipe…!
Yum! What are your breakfast friends or breakfast foes? Let me know in the comments below…
*Coconut oil has become popular recently, but why? According to Authority Nutrition, coconut oil is one of the richest sources of saturated fat known, and now we know these fats are harmless and can actually be beneficial to brain function and overall health.
Aside from cooking, it makes an AMAZING hand cream, especially this time of year, fab lip-balm, and I’ve even used it as a night cream. It’s so nourishing! Read more about coconut oil for beauty, health and cooking here at Lucy Bee.
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