Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Granola

Love my old-fashioned French milk bottle filled with rice milk - "the good milk" indeed!

Why yes, I did grow up on Cookie Crisp cereal, why do you ask? You may have recalled in my Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie post below that I said I loved them so much I was having them for breakfast. I started to think it would be nice to have this without all the guilt and thought of a granola with all the flavours of an Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie, after all, both are oatmeal based.

I have never made my own granola so had a search online and was happy to see how easy it is. However almost all the recipes called for using maple syrup, honey, agave, golden syrup to coat the oats in. While I would normally be more than happy to use maple syrup it just wasn't keeping with the cookie flavour I really wanted here.

Whenever I think of the main flavours in an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie I think primarily brown sugar, butter, vanilla and chocolate. So I thought I would make a brown sugar syrup to help replicate that, using just light muscovado sugar and water. It turned out beautifully and I set about making the granola with that instead. To that I added some melted vegan butter, vanilla and a bit of cinnamon, just like in my Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.

The end result was fantastic! This really does have the aura of an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie BUT without being overly sweet. By aura I mean it doesn't taste like you are eating a bowl of chopped up cookies - NOT what I was after, but rather, tastes just like granola with all the hints of an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. The best praise came from my son who had 2 bowls and said it "was the best cereal I have ever eaten and probably ever will". Aw shucks!

Oh, and ultimately I wanted to make this with chocolate chips, but if you read my cookie post below the chips I used to buy are no longer vegan so had to resort to chopping some dark vegan chocolate instead. It's still chocolate, it's still good ;-)

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Granola: makes about 600g

300g oats
Brown sugar syrup - recipe below
2 Tbsp vegan butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
100g dark chocolate chips or a chopped bar

Brown Sugar Syrup:
200g light muscovado sugar
100ml water

To make the syrup, simply add the sugar and water to a saucepan and slowly bring to the boil, stirring all the while. Reduce heat and simmer for 3 minutes, stirring very often, watch it as it can bubble up pretty quickly, just reduce the heat more and keep stirring if it does. Remove from the heat and add the margarine, stir until it melts then add the vanilla, stir well. (You can double or triple this syrup recipe if you would like extra, if you are making more then measure out 200ml of the syrup for this recipe. The rest can be kept in a glass bottle in the fridge - it's lovely of pancakes and the like.)

Preheat the oven to 150C and line a large baking sheet with baking paper. In a large bowl add the oats and cinnamon and mix well. Pour over the syrup and stir really well until everything is coated and it's evenly blended.

Tip this onto the baking sheet and spread out evenly. Pop in the oven for 20 minutes, remove give it a mix around, spread it out again and pop it back in the oven for another 20 minutes. Give it another mix, if it's golden and feeling crisp then it's done, remove and leave to fully cool.

When cool, tip it all into a large bowl and add the chocolate, give it a toss and that's it, it's ready for the morning. Keep in an airtight container or ziplock bag.

♥

Nutritional Information: based on a 50g or 1/3 cup serving

Calories: 225

Fat: 6g

Sat Fat: 2.4g

Protein: 5 g

Carbs: 38.4g

Sugar: 20g

Fibre: 3.5g