Edible Christmas Gifts: Festive Spiced Granola

Edible Christmas Gifts: Festive Spiced Granola

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Make something a little different this year, with this festive spiced granola! It’s crunchy, chewy and packed full of nuts. spices, fruit and even some cheeky dark chocolate! The perfect festive breakfast treat!

festive spiced granola

Granola has long been one of my favourite breakfasts, though only sprinkled on top of yoghurt. I can’t stand it with milk! I love the texture of thick yoghurt with crunchy and crisp granola. Pouring milk over for it to go soggy, is nottt my thing. But regardless of how you eat it, I hope you love this festive spiced granola as much as I do! It’s perfect for the Christmas period, and makes such a cute and unique gift!

Key Ingredients You’ll Need

  • Old-Fashioned Rolled Oats – For the best granola you want big chunky oats, so they make deliciously big and crunchy clusters. Most supermarkets have a big range of oats so you should be able to find the chunky ones easily!
  • Spices – So for this granola I used ground cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. So i can guarantee right now that your kitchen will smell incredible while this is in the oven!! For me those spices perfectly encapsulate the colder nights and twinkly lights of Christmas time.
  • Maple Syrup – This is our granola sweetener. Being in liquid form helps to ensure all the oats are well coated and the syrup is evenly dispersed. You could use honey here instead, but I love the flavour of maple syrup and it really works so well here with the spices, nuts and fruit.
festive spiced granola

How to make festive spiced granola

Making granola is superrr simple, and once you have the basics down you can tweak the recipe however you like, to make your perfect granola. I love the flavour combination of this granola, but use it as a jumping off point and use your imagination to change it! I’d love to know what you come up with!!

Preparing the granola

The first step for the the granola, is to combine all the liquid ingredients, spices and salt into a large bowl. So thats your vegetable oil, maple syrup, ground cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and salt. I know cooking with large quantities of oil can feels unpleasant, but your granola needs oil. Without oil (or fat), you’ll be left with super dry oats and it won’t be pleasant. You could use coconut oil if you prefer, or another flavourless oil. I have seen some granola recipes that use olive oil, but I haven’t personally tried that.

Then you can stir in your oats and chopped nuts. I used pistachios and hazelnuts, as for me they’re super festive and of course really delicious! You want to make sure the mixture is really well combined at this stage, so all the oats and nuts are covered in the liquid. Then you can tip the mixture out onto a lined baking tray.

You might notice that we haven’t added the raisins, glace cherries and dark chocolate yet. This is intentional, as adding them at this stage may cause them to burn. Instead we’ll add them once the granola has been cooked.

Spread the mixture out on the baking tray with a spatula, so it covers the whole tray. You want to choose a tray that is big enough that you can get an even layer of the granola, but not so big that you have gaps. Keeping the granola tightly packed together will help stop it from burning. Then using your spatula, press down on the mixture so it starts to stick and clump together a little. This will help us create delicious crunchy clusters.

granola process
granola process

Baking the granola

The granola should be baked for about 30 minutes total, making sure you stir half-way through. This just helps to ensure the granola doesn’t catch in the oven, and that you get an even bake throughout. Once you have stirred, make sure to press the mixture down again so you can create your clusters.

The granola is ready when its golden brown and the nuts are nicely toasted. The mixture should still be a little wet when you take it out of the oven, so be careful not to over-bake it! A little like biscuits, it continues cooking outside the oven, and will dry out and crisp up.

Once the granola is cooling out of the oven, you can finally add the fruit and dark chocolate chips! Give it a good stir to evenly disperse, and then your granola is ready to store and eat. Chocolate in a breakfast cereal is not something I would usually add – I’m not a big fan of the super sugary/chocolatey cereals in the shops – butttt as it’s Christmas, I thought this granola deserved a little extra treat factor. And the bitterness of the dark chocolate goes so well with the sweet maple syrup and glace cherries.

granola process - pre-bake
granola process - part-baked

Storing granola

Once your granola is completely cooled you can place it into cute glass jars, add labels and its ready to gift! It will keep air-tight for up to one month, making it a great make-ahead gift so you’re nice and prepared before Christmas.

You can get creative with the packaging, perhaps placing it into little bags instead with a ribbon tie. Or even create a small box into a cracker shape!? Edible presents are such a fun gift to give and always go down so well! And what I love about gifting this festive spiced granola, is that its so unique! You could even include the recipe in the gift, so your recipient can make their own batch!

edible gift, granola packing

Tips & Tricks

My granola hasn’t crisped up, what have I done?

This could be because you’ve added too much liquid initially. So make sure you’re measuring your ingredients out accurately. It could also be that the granola wasn’t in the oven long enough, or at a high-enough temperature. All ovens are different, so keep an eye on it and adjust accordingly.

I’m allergic to hazelnuts! Can I leave them out?

If you’re allergic to any of the nuts I’ve used, or you’re just not a fan! You can easily swap out the nut for a nut you prefer/can eat. Try to keep the measurements roughly the same as in the recipe, but a little under/over won’t matter too much.

Can I cut down the amount of oil used?

Short answer? No.
The oil/sweetener ratio should be 50:50 to properly coat the oats/nuts and ensure your oats aren’t dry or burnt. Remember that the granola will last for a month, so you can eat it in small portions to cut down on the calorie count.

festive spiced granola

The combination of warming spices, maple syrup, nuts, fruit and dark chocolate chips makes this granola so Christmassy and such a treat! I love how it looks in jars and really think it makes such a great gift. Though of course, you could absolutely just make this for yourself, and enjoy a festive breakfast in the lead up to the big day! I’d love to know if you make it and love it!

You can watch my Instagram Reel here, where I show each step!

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festive spiced granola

Edible Christmas Gifts: Festive Spiced Granola

Aimee Field
Make something a little different this year, with this festive spiced granola! It's crunchy, chewy and packed full of nuts. spices, fruit and even some cheeky dark chocolate! The perfect festive breakfast treat!
Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Cooling Time 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 25 minutes
Course Breakfast
Cuisine British

Ingredients
  

  • 120 ml sunflower oil or vegetable/coconut oil
  • 120 ml maple syrup
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 3/4 tsp ground ginger
  • 3/4 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 40 g hazelnuts
  • 40 g pistachios shelled
  • 240 g old-fashioned rolled oats
  • 60 g raisins or sultanas
  • 20 g glace cherries chopped
  • 40 g dark chocolate chips

Instructions
 

  • Firstly, pre-heat the oven to 150C/130C Fan/Gas Mark 2 and line a large lipped baking tray.
  • Place the oil, maple syrup, spices and salt into a large bowl and lightly whisk to combine. Then roughly chop the hazelnuts and pistachios and add to the bowl, along with the oats. Using a spatula, stir well to combine, ensuring all the oats & nuts are coated in the liquid. Then tip out onto the prepared tray, and spread out evenly. Then press the mixture down with your spatula to create a flat layer – this will help to create clusters.
  • Bake for 30 minutes, stirring halfway through. Making sure to re-press down the mixture, to help the clusters form.
  • The granola is ready when it's golden brown, the nuts are toasted and still seems a little wet. Remove from the oven, sprinkle over the raisins, chopped glace cherries and dark chocolate chips, and place onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
  • Once completely cool, give the granola a stir to combine the fruit and chocolate and then place into prepared air-tight jars or bags, ready to gift.

Notes

Granola will keep for up to one month, stored air-tight. 
Keyword christmas, granola


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