I’m a breakfast person. Maybe it’s because I’m not a morning person, and it gives me a motive to get out of bed when I’m tangled up in dream webs and sheets. Or maybe it’s a metabolic, blood sugar thing. And for two to three years (I’m really bad at time, I don’t know which) I ate exactly the same thing. Every morning. Granola + yogurt + fruit. Coffee. I found it to be the perfect breakfast to sate my hunger and keep me from consuming copious amounts of baked good throughout my recipe testing fraught days. One day I was asked for a granola recipe. So, like any normal person, I spent about half a day doing granola research to come up with my personal granola ideal. The clutch thing was it had to be clumpy. Granola without clumps is muesli as far as I’m concerned, and I got no time for that. Then one day I thought to add Lindt CLASSIC RECIPE White Chocolate and breakfast was complete. The flavor combination of white chocolate with dried cherries, big flakes of coconut, macadamia nuts, and bee pollen is just just. Just make it.
So here are my clumpy granola secrets gleaned from much testing & google fueled research.
1. A mix of wet and dry sweetener. Some form of granulated sugar, be it white, brown, sucanet, or otherwise. And some form of “wet sugar” like honey, sorghum, maple syrup, molasses, golden syrup, what have you. I used to use agave but I’ve since read some not so hot things about it and have removed it from my pantry pending further investigation.
2. A mix of oat flour, rice puffs, and rolled oats = maximum clumpage. Do not use quick oats in place of the rolled oats. Or you will have a sort of granola cookie. Which is nice tasting but not granola.
3. Egg white. While this can absolutely be made sans egg white if you are vegan, it acts as an excellent binder. Resulting in premium clumps.
4. Careful turning and minimum fussage. I turn my granola once during baking with a very, very large spatula (a giant red, plastic one designed for pancakes… very ugly but highly practical). I flip it in pieces as large as I can manage.
And there you have it. Granola worthy of, in my opinion, the name granola.
Then comes the adding of the stuff & things. This might be my favorite combination of stuff & things. As I’ve said before, I was a very vocal detractor of white chocolate & general hating hater of it…until I met Lindt LINDOR white chocolate truffles which acted as a gateway to the rest of their white chocolate. I’ve been hooked since. And will admit to making this granola and proceeding to eating all the white chocolate out of it forcing me to replenish it. Oops.
This is my Sunday morning indulgence granola, and while I don’t consume it every single morning like I used to, granola is still in heavy rotation. My favorite yogurt to top it with is Icelandic skyr. That stuff is protein packed, low in sugar, and the perfect compliment to this sweet granola. Though it isn’t too sweet. Just sweet enough.
Ingredients
- 20 grams 2 tablespoons bee pollen (optional)
- 50 grams 1 cup big coconut flakes
- 95 grams 1 cup rolled oats
- 125 grams 1 cup oat flour
- 30 grams 1 cup rice puffs
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 50 grams 1/4 cup sugar
- 70 grams 3/4 cup roughly chopped macadamia nuts
- 85 grams 1/4 cup honey
- 75 grams 1/3 cup unrefined coconut oil, melted but not hot
- 1 egg white room temp (if cold, it will cause the coconut oil to harden)
- 1 cup dried cherries roughly chopped
- 1 bar Lindt CLASSIC RECIPE white chocolate chopped/broken into bite size shards
Instructions
- Heat oven to 300°F, and line a sheet tray with parchment paper.
- In a mixing bowl thoroughly combine the bee pollen, coconut flakes, rolled oats, oat flour, rice puffs, salt, sugar, and nuts.
- In a separate bowl thoroughly combine the honey, coconut oil, and egg white.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients and stire (or work with your hands) until thoroughly combined & all the dry ingredients are wet.
- Pat the granola onto the sheet tray in one solid mass, a single layer, about 3/4 inch thick. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the edges start to turn golden. Remove from the oven, flip the granola, and bake for an additional 20 minutes or until it’s just golden brown. Allow granola to cool fully (it will come out chewy but crisp up when it’s room temp), and then break it up into desired size clumps. Gently mix in the cherries and white chocolate and store in an airtight container.
