Seeking Tips on Making Granola

So I'm ready to make my first attempt at homemade granola. The ever-ubiquitous Mark Bittmann has a pretty reasonable recipe here. It's pretty similar to the recipe from the also-ubiquitous Alton Brown, available here, except AB calls for longer baking at a lower temperature and also calls for the addition of a little vegetable oil. Adding vegetable oil seems kinda gross to me, but what do I know? I've never done this before.

I await the always authoritative advice of my fellow LTHers. Is oil necessary? Is a longer cooking time better? What are your favorite granola variations? Etc. Etc. Thanks!!

depends how long you plan to keep it. I think butter in granola tastes vastly superior, but if you make it with vegetable oil, you can store it almost indefinitely. Either way, I love it with just a dash of cayenne added before baking, and I think the longer cooking time is best.

I agree with KennyZ - butter tastes better. From my experience, you definitely need some fat in there. I tried making it with no butter or vegetable oil, like Bittmann, and the outcome had an overall burnt, bitter taste. So don't skip the fat, in my opinion.

As for the cooking time/temp, I prefer a lower temperature for longer. You're less likely to overcook. I don't stir it every 15 minutes like Alton Brown because I don't end up with any little clumps that way, so I stir every 25-30 minutes instead.

We also started adding molasses to ours, which gives a nice rich flavor.

we've been making our own for a while now. i used the alton brown recipe as a starting point, then tweaked it. in place of 1/3 of the oatmeal, i use ground flax seeds and wheat germ. i also change up the nuts, depending on whatever i have on hand. i do use the vegetable oil and maple syrup as my liquids.

i bake at 275, so a bit higher than alton's recommended 250, and i always put my sheet pans on the bottom rack of the oven, because i like to get some browning. the big thing is to disregard the recommendation to stir often. i'm a fan of some big chunks, so what i do is to not stir it at all for the first 45 minutes or so. then i check it and if it's dry and browned on the bottom, i do stir a bit, lower the oven to 250 and then move the trays up to the middle rack. this essentially halts the browning process and just dries out the granola.

you can always break up the chunks, but you can't re-chunk once their broken.

AB's recipe is adored in my household, so I haven't gotten around to trying Bittman's (though I like his idea of using peanut butter). I don't use any coconut (I use some extra nuts instead), I stir every 20 min, and i find that honey instead of maple syrup gives me bigger, candy-like chunks. I use a mix of dried fruit (cherries, cranberries, raisins) and a wide variety of nuts - whatever I have on hand. Sesame seeds added are also very nice.

More granola tips here

Thanks eatchicago for pointing me to that other thread. (I swear I did a search before posting! For some reason that thread didn't come up on the LTH search OR in a Google search for granola limited to lthforum.com.) Maybe merging the two threads makes sense.

And thanks to everyone for the advice. I'll keep you posted on my results.

Here's my recipe, which I've literally made every week for a couple of years now (and know of at least two other households that got hooked). Simplicity is key for me.

For one sheet pan (I usually make a double batch):
1 cups oats (regular rolled, buy not instant)
1.5 cups of nuts: I use two kinds per batch, choosing from walnuts, pecans, pistachio, almond and macadamia (Trader Joes is the place to buy them)
1 or 2 tablespoons of brown sugar
.5 cup maple syrup.
Dash of salt, and perhaps some vanilla extract

Stir the brown sugar in the maple syrup, and then mix that with nuts oats. Mix well to coat all of the oats.
I bake for 20 minutes at 350 (top will be lightly brown), stir, and usually another 5 does it. It will all be lightly brown. This is much shorter and higher heat than most recipes, but if it took much longer, I wouldn't do it as often.

We mix this with a conventional cereal each morning, 7 days a week. Yeah, we're boring, but my wife and I just love the stuff.

I quite like this recipe and technique, and there's an added bonus of being "locally sourced", since the bloggeress is based in Chicago:
http://thekitchensinkrecipes.com/2008/0 ... ains-call/