Nut-Free Maple Granola

A colourful Granola mixture with rolled oats, puffed rice, dates, sultanas, apples, cranberries, glace cherries & stem ginger, spiced with cinnamon and sweetened with Canadian maple syrup and Vegan dark chocolate chips.

Ingredients

1000g Rolled Oats

700g Corn Flakes

450g Puffed rice

250ml Extra Virgin Olive oil

250ml Maple syrup

250g Sultanas

200g Uncrystallised Ginger, coarse chop

200g Dates, cut in quarters

200g Dried Cranberries

200g Dried Pineapple chunks

200g Dried Apple, coarse chop

200g Glace cherries, cut in half

200g Dark Chocolate, 70% cocoa mass or better, chopped into small pieces or use small choc chips. A Good Vegan chocolate is a great here

30g Cinnamon, ground

Method

• Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius, and line 2 large baking trays with greaseproof baking paper
• Chop all the fruit as per the ingredients list, combine with the chocolate, put to one side.
• Mix the Oats, Puffed Rice, Corn Flakes, chopped Ginger and Cinnamon in a large bowl
• Add the Maple Syrup and Oil and stir gently to coat. then spread some on to each of the four trays to a depth of no more than 2 cm
• Put the trays in the oven and bake for 10 minutes, stir the granola mix and bake for 10 minutes more.
• Once baked, add a couple of handfuls of the dried fruit and chocolate mix and stir into the tray. The heat will melt the chocolate so stir again after 5 minutes.
• Allow to cool completely in the tray, then transfer to a large container.
• Repeat the last three steps until all the mix is baked, mixed and cooled.
• Ensure the whole batch of multiple trays is evenly mixed.
• Can be stored in an airtight container for a couple of weeks, or if stored in a vac- seal bag up to 6 months.

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Saving this to my blog as I can never find the recipe on my phone files!

Notes

Adding other dried fruit is good but be mindful that banana chips or dried coconut can overpower the other flavours. Mango and Papaya are very sweet so only use 100g of either. Other options include apricot, pear, strawberry, Gogi berries depending on personal taste.

Honey can be used instead of maple syrup if preferred, but will be sweeter tasting, and at risk of burning in the oven.

When chopping the fruit, make the pieces all about the same size, being 1cm or smaller, so that each spoonful is not just one thing.

Save time when making by having multiple trays and cook 2 at a time, while 2 cool down.