About Time: You Made 5 Amazing Lizi’s Granola RecipesBy Angelica Malin
Forget cereal just for breakfast, there’s no reason why you can’t enjoy oats all day long in different forms. Get creative in the kitchen with these fantastic Lizi’s Granola recipes:
1. For a BBQ: Granola Bread Loaf
Time: 20 minutes prep, plus rising time (about 2 ½ hours, plus 30-40m in the oven)
Ingredients
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
2 cups water – lukewarm
1 tbsp honey or golden caster sugar
2 1/2 cups strong white flour
1 ½ cups wholemeal flour
1 cup oats
2 tsp sea salt
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 cup Lizi’s Organic Granola
Method
Although active dry yeast is obviously a fabulous invention, I always prefer to add mine to water with either the sugar or honey in a small bowl – for about 10m until it goes frothy – so you can be sure it activated properly and your loaf will rise like a skyscraper. Whilst you are waiting for that to happen, in a freestanding mixer or large bowl add the two flours, oats and salt and give a good stir. Then using either a dough hook if you’re using a mixer or bare hands if you’re not, add the melted butter and the yeast mixture and knead for about 10m by hand, or for about 6m in a mixer. It should spring back when pushed. Then – if your biceps/mixer can take any more – add the granola and knead in thoroughly. Cover with a tea towel and allow the dough to rise in a warm place until double in size – about 1 ½ to 2 hours. Knead again – either by hand of using the dough hook still – and then shape into a loaf shape on a greased or lined baking sheet. Allow to rise again for 1½ hour until it doubles in size again. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until hollow sounding when tapped. Cool, slice and eat.
2. For a Snack: Fruity Granola Bars
These are delicious and very moreish but their hidden beauty is their versatility – truly anything goes. So the ingredients list below is just a guideline –please feel free to substitute your favourite dried fruits, nuts and seeds (or simply whatever you have in your cupboard) with the ones I have chosen.
Ingredients
100 g unsalted butter
3 tbs honey
1 tbs brown sugar
200 g granola
50 sunflower seeds
50g pecan nuts – chopped
100g dried fruit (I used cranberries and raisins)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
50g chocolate chopped if you are feeling decadent
Method
Heat the oven to 160C/fan 140C/gas 3. Butter and line a 20cm x 20cm baking dish or tin. Heat the butter, honey and sugar in a large saucepan, stirring until the butter is melted. Add the granola, seeds, nuts, dried fruit and chocolate if using and stir until combined. Tip into the tin and press down lightly until even – I always do with this with my potato masher! – then bake for 25 mins or until golden on top. Cool in tin, then cut into 12 squares. If you don’t cool it before cutting, it will be less of a bar and more of a crumble.
3. For Brunch: Banana and Chocolate Granola Pancakes
Serves: 4
Ingredients
130g flour
2 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
half tsp bicarbonate of soda
half tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
250ml milk
1 egg
25g butter, melted
130g Lizi’s Belgian Chocolate Granola
Method
Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and salt in a big bowl or jug.
Using a whisk, give it a good stir so that all the raising agents are well distributed and no-one will get a mouthful of bicarbonate of soda.
In a smaller bowl mix the milk, egg and butter.
Put your frying pan on a medium heat.
Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and whisk lightly until smooth. Pour in the granola and stir briefly. Then, from a jug (much neater than ladling out with a spoon) pour a pancake-sized splatter of batter on to the pan. Depending on your pouring abilities you will probably get about four pancakes in the pan at one time.
Watch the pancakes, and when you see bubbles rise to the surface, that side is done. Use a spatula to flip the pancake and let it cook for a minute or so on the other side and then remove from the pan.
These American style pancakes are light, fluffy with a deliciously unexpected crunch. Serve with a slathering of chocolate spread, some sliced banana and a sprinkling of chocolate granola on top for a hearty breakfast or a decadent pud.
4. For a Roast: Apricot, Sage and Granola Stuffing
This stuffing is delectable, but do actually put it inside the chicken – the oats will soak up all those delicious juices, making it all the more tasty. So much nicer than it’s dry tray baked cousin.
Serves: One big chicken
Ingredients
30g butter
1 onion, finely diced
125g Lizi’s low sugar granola
75g dried organic apricots, a mixture of finely chopped and just chopped
4 sage leaves, finely chopped
half tsp fresh thyme leaves
Salt and pepper
Method
Melt the butter in a small pan and fry the onion until it is translucent.
Stir in the granola, apricots and herbs.
Cook the mixture gently for ten minutes and season with salt and pepper.
Let it cool before you stuff the chicken. Then spoon it into the neck end of the chicken’s cavity. Don’t pack the oats in too hard, as they will expand during cooking. Also, if they are too packed they may stop the heat penetrating the centre of the body. Put it straight in a preheated oven and cook as normal.
Once the chicken is cooked all the way through, serve as normal and spoon out the stuffing on to people’s plates. They will be forever grateful.
5. For Afternoon Tea: Pistachio and Passionfruit Cake
Serves: 10
Ingredients
250g butter – room temperature
250g sugar
100g pistachios, roasted but not salted
100g ground almonds
200g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp Greek yoghurt
3 eggs
Juice and zest of an orange
Passionfruit Icing
50g butter – room temperature
150g cream cheese
75g icing sugar
1 passion fruit (or passion fruit curd)
1 tbsp Lizi’s Passionfruit & Pistachio Granola
Method
Butter and line a 20cm cake tin. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C/160 fan.
Give the butter and sugar a really good mix with a handheld blender or a standalone mixer (if you’ve got one, lucky thing!).
After about three minutes of whizzing, add pistachios, almonds, flour, baking powder and the yoghurt.
Give it a good beating, till everything is well mixed. Then add the eggs, one at a time.
Pour the batter into the lined cake tin and put in the oven for around 50 minutes, until a skewer comes out of the cake clean.
Leave to cool and make the icing.
With an electric whisk cream the butter until it is pale. Add the cream cheese, whisk some more and then whisk in the icing sugar. Cut the passion fruit in half, and sieve the juice into the icing. You could put the seeds in too, but for something a bit simpler-looking, just the juice will do (or a tablespoon of passionfruit curd) Stir and then, using a knife, spread the icing on to the cake. Crumble the granola over the top for a yummy crunch.
