Granola muffins
adopted from nigella lawson’s domestic goddess for Brooklyn kitchens
2 cups granola
1 cup buttermilk
¼ cup neutral oil like veggie (olive oil will taste strongly in a sweet muffin like this)
2 eggs
1 cup of flour
¼ cup of sugar (white or brown to compliment your granola)
preheat your oven to 350° and line a twelve-cup muffin tray with papers or butter the little bins. Measure your buttermilk into a big measuring cup and beat in the eggs and oil. In a big mixing bowl, pour all the liquids over the granola.
to measure flour for baking, stir it with a fork in the bag to loosen, scoop into a measuring cup and level off the top by running the flat side of a butter knife over it. (Unless you are making Cake – then triple sift your flour.) Gently stir the flour and sugar into the granola slop, just enough to combine, over-stirring toughens your muffins. Spoon the batter into the muffin tin and bake for 15 minutes, until the tops are golden brown. Serve with butter and jam or honey. Phenomenal warm but will keep for a day. Freeze if you want to keep them longer.
Granola
homemade granola makes you understand why people ate it to begin with.
2 cups oats (not the quick cooking kind)
1 cup pecans, semi-crushed
1 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds!)
½ cup sesame seeds
½ cup golden raisins
1 cup dried apple rings cut into bit
2-3 tablespoons of butter
1 cup of honey
3-4 cardamom pods, crushed
cinnamon
sea salt
Line a baking tray with parchment paper, butter it and preheat your oven to 350. Also butter a large mixing bowl.
Toast the oats, pecans, pepitas, cardamom pods, and sesame seeds in a dry skillet over medium flame. Begin the oats first then stir in the rest staggered, like making a stir-fry and the delicate, quick cooking peas go in last. Stir frequently, toasting until the oats and sesame seeds are lightly browned and everything is nutty toasty smelling. Add the butter near the end, stirring to melt it and coat everything.
Pull out any sharp, big cardamom pod bits to be kind to your eaters.
Pour it all into a very big mixing bowl. Add the dried fruit and cinnamon then pour the honey over it. Stir together and dump on the cookie sheet. Sprinkle with sea salt. Bake in the middle of your oven for about 15 minutes, until further browned and stuck together all granola like. Let the tray cool on a rack for a few hours then break apart and store in an airtight container.
Make it vegan with oil instead of butter. Experiment with fancy nut oils like hazelnut for transcendental granola.
Obviously, granola should be made to suit your whims: consider dried cranberries, pistachios, dried chili pepper flakes, orange zest or chocolate chips (add after cool).
Granola recipes are of mixed minds about when to add the dried fruit, before or after baking? Raisins and dried apples lend themselves to going through the baking process, though I sometimes do not add them and instead add them after the granola has been baked, dumping it back into the mixing bowl and gently mixing by butter hand while its still hot, though cooled to bearable temperature.
