Make Homemade Granolas!

1. Welcome to the class!: Hello. Welcome to this homemade granola class. My name is Rita. I am a Portuguese pastry chef. I'm a cookbook author, and I'm a YouTuber, and I love to make granolas. Granola is a very popular breakfast food, but it can be very expensive. The good news is that when you make granolas at home, they are much cheaper and they are very easy to. Once you start making your own granolas, chances are you will never buy granola from the store again. And besides being much cheaper and easy to make, the other big advantage of making the granolas at home is that you can customize them and use the ingredients that you prefer. What you will learn in this class is to base granola recipe with very few ingredients, and then you can use it simple for a simpler granola, or you can use this base granola to build other flavors. And as a bonus, in this class, I will also teach you three granola flavors, so you can see what kind of granolas you can make and to get some inspiration. So the granolas we are making today besides the base granola are a double chocolate granola, an apple and cinnamon granola, and a granola made with nuts and seeds. So there is a granola for everyone. And now let's officially start our class. 2. Granola base recipe: Oh start by making our basic granola recipe. As I mentioned before, you can use this recipe to make your granola as is, or you can use it to build other granola flavors. Depending on the ingredients that you will use to make your granolas, you can add them directly to the base recipe and bake everything in the oven or some ingredients you will add them after. I will give you more tips about this at the end of the class. With these quantities, you will make about a tray full of granola. And again, depending on the ingredients that you choose to add to your base recipe, you will make more or less quantity of granola. But more or less, you will make a jar like this, which is not bad. Obviously, you can double or triple the recipe if you want to make bigger quantities. I already told you that making granolas at home, it's very easy, but I didn't tell you it's very fast as well. So you are going to need about five to 10 minutes to mix the granola and then 20 minutes in the oven. So the whole process start to finish. I won't take you more than half an hour. It is very worth it. Now, let's check the ingredients. We will need to make our basic recipe, and then let's make it. We are going to need rolled oats, coconut oil, or any other oil that you prefer. Honey, or you can also use maple syrup, shredded coconut, I'm using unsweetened and the pinch of salt. Start by melting together the coconut oil and the honey either in the microwave or in a saucepan, mix it until everything is liquid, and then add it into a bowl with a rolled oats, the coconut, and the pinch of salt. Mix everything so the mixture of coconut oil and honey can coat evenly the rolled oats. The coconut, and believe it or not, this is it. Our base granola is ready. You can now spread it in a tray and bake it. But I am going to use it to make other granola flavors. If you want to bake it like this, follow the baking instructions of the recipes that I am going to show you next. 3. Nuts and seeds granola: A. Now that our base recipe is ready, it's time to have some fun with our granolas. I'm going to teach you now how to make one of my favorites. It's a nuts and seeds granola, full of textures and flavors, I am sure you're gonna love it. For this granola, we will need a recipe of granola base, and then walnuts, azelnuts, almonds, and cashew. You can also use just one type of the nuts with the full quantity of these quantities that I am using divided. And then pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds. The same goes for the seeds and cinnamon. With the granola base ready, let's start by roughly chopping the nuts. It's important to use raw nuts because if they are already roasted, and if you take them to the oven, they might burn. So you can use roasted nuts, but then add them at the end. So I'm chopping the cashews, the walnuts, the almonds, and the hazelnuts. But actually, if you prefer a chunkier granola, you can leave your nuts whole. You don't need to chop. Now that I have mine all chopped, I'm going to add them into the granola base with the seeds and the cinnamon. And I'm going to mix everything together so everything is evenly distributed. Let's spread it now into a tray and take it to the oven at 170 Celsius or 325 Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes. But every seven to 8 minutes, take the tray out of the oven and mix very well, so it bakes evenly. When everything is golden brown, it's ready, give it a final stir and let it cook completely before stirring. But 4. Apple and cinnamon granola: A. Next, we are going to make an apple and cinnamon granola that almost tastes like an apple pie. For this granola, we will need the granola base, dried apple slices, raisins, and cinnamon. Add the cinnamon into the granola base, mix very well, and then spread this mixture into a tray and take it to the oven to bake at 325 Fahrenheit or 170 Celsius for about 20 minutes. But every seven to 8 minutes, take the tray out of the oven and mix everything so it bakes evenly. Everything is golden brown, take it out of the oven, let it cool and meanwhile, break the apple slices into small pieces. You can do this using a knife or scissors, but I prefer to do this by hand, and they should look like this. Once the granola is no longer warm, you can add the pieces of dried apple and raisins and mix very well. So later, every bite of granola has apples and raisins, and now it's ready to eat or to store. 5. Double chocolate crunchy granola: A. Lastly, I'm going to share a granola that is perfect for the chocolate lovers, a double chocolate crunchy granola. The ingredients for this granola are a recipe of granola base, cocoa powder, chocolate rice crispies. If you don't find chocolate ones, you can use just plain and then dark and white chocolate. You can use a bar that you are going to later chop into very small chunks or you can use small chocolate chips. The granola based recipe ready, add the cocoa powder, mix very well and spread this mixture into a tray and take it to the oven at 170 Celsius or 325 Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes or until everything is golden brown. Take the tray out of the oven every seven to 8 minutes to mix everything together, allowing the granola to bake evenly. Soon as the granola is ready and comes out of the oven, it's not crispy or crunchy. It will crisp up once it's cold, don't worry, leave it to cool and when it's completely cold, you will see it's going to be very crispy. At this point, chop the chocolate into small chunks if you are using a bar like me. I have decided to use dark and white chocolate, but you can also use milk chocolate. When your granola is cold, add the chopped chocolate and the rice crispies and mix everything together. Now you have three options. You can eat it right away. You can store. Actually, you can package it and offer it because I think Ranolas make also a great gift. 6. Tips for making granolas: A. Before finishing this class, I want to give you some more tips for your granola success. One of them is how to store correctly your granolas. They need to be in an airtight container. A jar like this is perfect, and they can last for up to a month if they are stored correctly, but I'm sure they won't last as long. So I want to give you a few tips about the ingredients that you can use to add flavor and texture to your granolas. And most of them you can add directly to your base recipe and bake in the oven, like spices or nuts, for instance. But some others I prefer to add at the end, and those are the ingredients that shouldn't be baked. Like chocolate, for instance, it would melt and it would burn. And some ingredients may get a little bit tough when baked like raisins or cranberries, for instance. So I also add those at the end, and also like cereals, for instance, or some other ingredients that I want to add that really don't need to be baked. I also add them at the end. So have this in mind when creating your own granola flavors. 7. Goodbye and class project: Aw. I hope you have enjoyed this class and I hope you are feeling inspired to make your granolas at home. As for the class project, I invite you to make obviously a granola. You can use either one of the flavors that I shared with you or you can create your own. And please don't forget to upload the picture so we can all see your creations. You can also check my other classes here, and you can find me at La Dolce ita on Instagram and on YouTube. I will see you in my next class and happy granola baking. Bye.