Granola/Toasted Muesli

Finding a fructose-friendly breakfast cereal is particularly difficult. There are now plenty of gluten-free and wheat cereals made commercially, but most (almost ALL) are sweetened with apple or pear juice. Muesli is a good option for avoiding wheat, but so many have dried fruit. Making your own at home is really, really easy and it means you can customise it so it suits your tricky eating needs.

Don't eat gluten? Fear not, If you don't eat oats you can try substituting with rice flakes and/or corn flakes or puffed rice. Or go grain-free and use only nuts and/or seeds.

Don't eat nuts? Use more cereals and only seeds, or if you can eat dried fruit add it at the end to the cooled, cooked muesli.

This recipe uses rice malt syrup to sweeten and toast the muesli. Rice malt syrup contains less fructose than brown sugar and golden syrup which are traditionally used to sweeten and toast muesli. But if it is good enough for Nigella, it's good enough for me. Rice Malt Syrup is available in most Coles supermarkets in the health food section, or in healthfood stores. (I've never found it in Safeway/Woolworths, but they might have it - or ask them to order it in).

This is the batch I made this weekend, but like I said, you can change your ingredients so it isn't the same all the time. Just keep the general ratio of dry ingredients and wet ingredients the same.

Ingredients:
300g Oats (or other cereal flakes)
300g Nuts/Seeds. I used almonds, pinenuts, pepitas (pumpkin seeds) and sunflower seeds. Other options are hazelnuts, pecans, brazil nuts, cashews, macadamias, walnuts, sesame seeds. Whatever is seasonal/available/affordable.
2 teaspoons cinnamon
Pinch of salt
3 tablespoons of melted butter or vegetable oil (A lot of granola recipes I looked at used Sunflower oil)
1/2 Cup of Rice Malt Syrup/Brown Rice Syrup.
1-3 teaspoons of vanilla paste. I use 3 because my partner and I LOVE vanilla and I wanted a delicious vanilla hit, but if you're not a fan, leave it out or just use less.

In a large mixing bowl combine the oats, nuts, seeds and spices. Mix together so they are well combined.

In a small saucepan melt the butter, rice malt syrup and vanilla paste.
Pour the melted butter/sugar mixture onto your oat mixture and stir until well combined.
Line two large baking trays with baking paper, and spread the mixture evenly onto the trays.

Bake at 170C for 40 minutes to 1 hour, turning every 20 minutes to avoid it burning.
The mixture should look slightly golden when it is finished. Take the trays out of the oven, and allow the mixture to cool on the trays. When it's cool put it into an air tight container.

Serve with any milk or yoghurt, or even just eat it on its own as a snack.

If you have any questions, or you have some suggestions for additions to this recipe, or a breakfast cereal recipe of your own please leave a comment