Toad Mountain Granola

I was flipping through my Whitewater Cooks at Home cookbook the other day and re-discovered a recipe that I had wanted to try: Toad Mountain Granola.  It was perfect timing because I was almost out of granola, so I picked up the ingredients and got down to business!

Ingredients

• 5 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup sunflower seeds
• 1 cup sesame seeds (I used toasted sesame seeds because that's what I had on hand)
• 1 cup almonds (crushed, slivered or sliced...depending on how dark you like them)
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp dried ginger (the spice, not the raw root)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup apple sauce
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup maple syrup (use the real stuff!)
• 1 cup dried fruit (my favourite is cranberries)

Preheat oven to 325F.  Mix the oats, seeds, almonds, cinnamon, ginger and salt together in a big bowl.  Add the apple sauce and mix thoroughly, until all of the mixture is a little wet.  Add the oil, honey and maple syrup, and mix well.  Bake for an hour, stirring well every 20 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool.  Mix in the dried fruit and store in the fridge in tupperware. 

This granola is really nice.  Hearty and full of flavour, but not hard as rock.  It was a really nice change.  If you're a home-made granola fan, you should definitely try this recipe out.

Note: the original recipe calls for brown sugar, but when I went to add mine I discovered that I had forgot to store it with a piece of bread in it so the sugar was rock hard (I'll learn one day Mom).  However, I quite enjoyed it without it, so I don't think it's necessary.

Cooling and waiting for the cranberries to be mixed in.

 

http://www.whitewatercooks.com/