Coconut & Mixed Nut Granola

The Bearded Bakery - Coconut Granola

Lockdown is still going. We’ve stocked up on dried goods but we’re avoiding going to supermarkets, opting mainly for a veg box delivery and buying dried goods like flour, nuts and seeds from specialised online stores or smaller local independent shops. We’ve been finding places like this to be well stocked and quieter. As such, access to normal cereal has been minimal, but access to the components to make granola has been significantly easier. So we finally felt it was time to try and make a homemade granola recipe.

The Bearded Bakery | Homemade Granola

I’ll keep this pretty simple. The key ingredients in this recipe are as follows, and you can mix and match some of the other bits.

  1. Oil – we used butter
  2. Oats
  3. Sugar
  4. Desiccated coconut
  5. Syrup – we used a split of 50/50 split of honey and golden syrup, but different ratios and different syrups will work
  6. Nuts – we used a mixture of different nuts but you can mix and match. Opt for a cheaper nut for the bulk like a walnut unless you’re feeling particularly flush. We also used some seeds.

The key is the oil and sugars as they’ll get the granola nice and crunchy and help it cling together. The types of nuts you use are less essential and more come down to flavour combinations, what you can get hold of and what you can afford to use. For clarity, we used almonds walnuts, pistachios, flaked almonds and pumpkin seeds. The main nuts being almonds and walnuts.

This recipe will make about 1kg of granola, you can multiply it to make more.

The Bearded Bakery - Granola Recipe

Simple Nut Granola Recipe

A simple granola with mixed nuts and desiccated coconut.
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes
Course Breakfast
Servings 20 portions (around 50g each)

Ingredients
  

  • 110 g unsalted butter
  • 195 g syrup (we used a mixture of honey and golden syrup)
  • 200 g demerara sugar
  • 175 g oats
  • 170 g desiccated coconut
  • 100 g mixed seeds & flaked almonds (we used flaked almonds and pumpkin seeds)
  • 150 g Mixed nuts (we used walnuts, almonds and pistachios)
  • 1/2 Orange, zested (optional)

Instructions
 

  • Preheat your oven to 150°C (130°C fan assisted) and line a couple of large baking trays with greaseproof paper.
  • In a medium sized pan, melt the butter with the sugar, syrup and zest. You want the butter to have melted and combined but you don’t want the mixture to boil.
  • Mix together all of the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
  • Pour the syrup and butter mixture over the dry ingredients, mixing well until all of the dry ingredients are coated.
  • Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking trays, making sure they’re well spread out and in one single layer on each tray.
  • Place the trays in the oven, baking for 10 minutes undisturbed.
  • Remove from the oven and turn the mixture in each tray. Return to the oven and keep checking every 5 minutes.
  • The granola will be done when the mixture has turned a golden brown colour. Be very careful not to overcook. It will likely still seem a bit soggy when you take it out, but it will crisp up as it cools.
  • Allow to cool completely in the trays and transfer to an air-tight container once cooled.
Keyword Granola

Miso Brownies

Miso Brownie - The Bearded Bakery

We’re living through very strange times. With a pandemic sweeping the globe and entire countries on shut down, everyone’s spending significantly more time indoors. Based on my social feeds this means that people seem to be baking a whole lot more often. I’ve joined the masses in making my own sourdough starter, made vegan cookie dough that’s portioned off into batches and popped in the freezer, even tried making fresh pasta for the first time. All in all, I’ve been spending a significant time in the kitchen. It’s been a good way of escaping from staring at a screen while I’m tried indoors, but also being practical at the same time. It feels like a good time to get a few posts up too.

Miso Brownie - The Bearded Bakery

This is actually a recipe I baked long before all of this kicked off. It’s one I’ve had in the back of my mind, ready to be blogged if I ever got round to getting back writing. After buying the fantastic new Meera Sodha book ‘East’ at the tail end of 2019, I found a recipe for Miso Brownies. Now, hers are a little more involved than these, using flax seeds, but the concept sounded fantastic so it was something I wanted to try.

Miso Brownie - The Bearded Bakery

Using miso for something dense and fudge-y like a brownie is excellent. It adds to that fudge-like texture but also gives an additional caramel-like flavour to the brownie. Miso’s something you may have picked up as an additional long-life extra when you were at a supermarket, or for one individual recipe. This bake should help give you some ideas for other uses too, like miso mac and cheese, or miso caramel.

So what’s everyone been baking lately?

Miso Brownies

Michael
Fudgy brownies with a nutty caramel tang. Perfect for using up any miso you’ve got in the store cupboard.
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 23 minutes
Total Time 43 minutes
Course Dessert

Ingredients
  

  • 115 g Unsalted butter
  • 115 g Dark chocolate (70%)
  • 2 Eggs large
  • 1 Egg white from a large egg
  • 300 g White granulated sugar
  • 2 tbsp Miso the type doesn’t really matter
  • 1 tsp Vanilla extract
  • 110 g Plain flour

Instructions
 

  • Preheat your oven to 180°C(160°C fan assisted) and line a 9x9inch square tin with baking paper.
  • While the oven’s heating up, melt the chocolate and butter together. Do this by placing a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Don’t let the bottom of the bowl touch the water and stir until the butter and chocolate have melted together.
  • Leave this mixture somewhere cool a little while you do the rest.
  • In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, or using an electric whisk, beat together the eggs, egg white and sugar. This will take a while, so a stand mixer will be best. Whisk for 7-10 minutes. The mixture will have gone pale and yellow. If you pick some up on the whisk and dribble it across the top, it should take a couple of seconds for the line to disappear. This step is essential for getting the properly crispy meringue-like top.
  • Stir through the miso and the vanilla.
  • Carefully stir through the chocolate and butter mixture, making sure you don’t knock much air out.
  • Carefully stir through the flour, again making sure you don’t knock the air out.
  • Transfer the mixture to the prepared tin, and place in the middle shelf of your preheated oven.
  • Bake for 17-22 minutes. You want the top to have crisped up and for there to be just a little jiggle when you wobble the tray.
  • Place the tin on a cooling rack and allow to cool completely, and set, before serving.
Keyword Miso Brownies

Chocolate Profiteroles (W/ Optional Crème Patissiere)

Chocolate Profiteroles with Creme Pat

Hi there, I know I’ve been quiet this year, but you didn’t think I’d stay quiet over the Christmas period, right? Christmas is the best time for baking; when everyone’s having get-togethers, bringing in biscuit boxes to work or just generally hiding from the cold dark evenings. I’ve still been baking, and I’ve even managed to photograph some of the things I’ve baked. This mean I’ve managed to get a bit of a backlog of recipes to post, and what better time than Christmas to post them? I’ve been trying to push myself with my baking recently, teaching myself new things, or baking things that are outside of my usual comfort zone. One of the things that’s been on my list for years, that I’ve never plucked up the courage to try and make, has been choux pastry. It’s always been intimidating, from bake off to recipe books to many places talk about how hard it is to get right. After a few mistakes with my baking in recent months I was even more worried, but decided that now was the time to try and make some simple Profiteroles, and that it was also time to try my hand at making Crème Patissiere for the first time too. Read more

Crack Pie

Crack Pie - Butter Tart

This is going to be my last post of 2017 and I feel like it’s a good one to sign out on. It’s actually been in the works from as far back as last August, when I went to New York. Whenever I’ve baked this recipe in that time the photos I’ve taken just haven’t been good enough, and for a recipe as good as this one, the photos need to do it justice. So lets rewind to August of 2016; after a day walking around Manhattan in the baking heat we sought out Milk Bar, part of the famed Momofuku group, to stock up on some bakes. Crack Pie had come recommended, and with such a ludicrous name, it sounded like something I needed to try. I didn’t realise that I was about to have one of the single most decadent desserts of my life. Crack Pie is essentially a butter tart, so think a dense layer of gooey, buttery filling sitting on top of a biscuit base.
Read more

Brown Butter Cookies

Brown Butter Cookies

I’ve got an absolutely massive soft spot for cookies. You can probably tell from the number of cookie recipes I’ve done over the last few years since I started this blog. From your basic choc chip cookies through to caramel stuffed cookies or brownie crackle cookies. This does mean that I’m starting to reach a point where my core recipes are actually all fairly similar, but I just mix up the flavours and fillings. This one is slightly different though, and indulgent; Brown Butter Cookies. One of my favourite flavours of ice cream is London’s Chin Chin Lab’s ‘Burnt Butter Caramel’, which has its grounding in the same technique. Browning the butter gives it a more caramel-y edge, giving it hints of toffee. This makes it perfect to go with fillings like pecans, chocolate and salt.
Read more