A winter storm’s on its way and it looks like we’ll finally be having a white Christmas! I’m off a little early today and thought I’d spend the afternoon making a huge batch of granola to give a way for Christmas. Who doesn’t love granola? It’s an healthy alternative and an unexpected gift from the usual boxes of Christmas chocolates and cookies.

Cranberry Coconut Christmas Granola

Be warned, granola is truly addictive to make. It’s simple, foolproof and leaves the house smelling of delicious aromas with toasty notes of nuts and spices. Yum! The very best thing about making granola is that it is very customizable. It can easily be adapted to different tastes and preferences; switch up the ingredients and you have a new designer cereal. For Christmas, I added dried cranberries as well as toasted and untoasted coconut shreds; the red and white make it more festive!

Daniel has been sneaking away fistfuls of granola; I hope there will still be enough left over to give away or I’ll have to make another batch.

Ingredients

1 cup pure maple syrup (optional: add another 1/2 cup if you like your granola sweeter)
6 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup coconut oil (alternative: vegetable oil)
10 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2 cup whole raw almonds, coarsely chopped
2 cup dried cranberries
2 cup pumpkin seeds
4 cups coconut shreds, unsweetened; reserve 1 cup to add in at the end
1 cup hemp hearts

The table below summarizes the approximate costs of ingredients and supplies (the mason jars) I bought for the purpose of making granola.

[table]Ingredient, Unit Price ($/1kg), Amount Purchased (kg), Cost
Oats,$2.90,1.0,$2.90
Hemp Hearts,$28.60,0.1,$2.86
Coconut Shreds,$9.99,0.25,$2.50
Almonds,$11.02,0.272,$3.00
Dried Cranberries,$14.90,0.1,$1.49
Sunflower Seeds,$5.90,0.2,$1.18
250 ml Mason Jars,””,””,$7.91
Total,””,””,$21.83[/table]

The list ingredients above, with the exception of the almonds, were purchased at a local bulk food store. The almonds were purchased from Costco. The entire bag at costco weighs 1.36 kg; since I used less than a fifth of the bag, I estimated that to weigh approximately 0.272 kg for the purpose of calculating costs.The recipe calls for other ingredients, such as salt and vanilla extract, which I already had at home; these other ingredients obviously have an associated cost, but since they’re basic kitchen ingredients and were used in insignificant amounts, they’ve not been accounted for in the total.

I made a total of 12 mason jars of granola; each jar costs approximately $1.81.

Directions

Yield: About 22 cups (a dozen 250-ml mason jars)
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes
Total time: 55 minutes

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl, add the oats, almonds, pumpkin seeds, coconut shreds and hemp seeds
3. In a second bowl, whisk together maple syrup, vanilla extract, salt and the oil. Pour the mixture into the first bowl with the oats; fold the mixture together until the dry ingredients are thoroughly coated.
4. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. Pour the oat mixture onto the prepared baking sheet and spread into a thin, even layer. Compress the oat mixture until compact.
5. Bake for about 45 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Rotate the baking sheet halfway through baking.
6. Remove the granola from the oven and cool to room temperature. Break the cooled granola into pieces and stir in the dried cranberries and reserved coconut shreds.

The granola can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks.