How to make Apple & Almond Granola

One of my favourite breakfasts to make and enjoy has to be a toasted granola filled with healthy dried fruit and nuts. My Toffee Apple & Almond Granola is every bit wholesome, warming and still really declious.

The best thing about granola?

It is SUPER easy to make right at home.

All you need is an oven, a tray, oats, some honey or maple syrup and you have yourself the most basic granola ever.

But let’s talk about this one here. Nirry and I purchased a box of toffee apple granola and we absolutely loved it. It was sweet and warm and had all the flavours of Fall/Autumn. Interestingly I cannot say I normally enjoy dried apple in anything, however this granola really got me rethinking the humble ingredient. My recipe, bear in mind, isn’t necessarily replicating the granola we ate. I’ve created something a bit less sweet, using almonds and goji berries to add flavour.

How to make your Granola

We start our recipe with 3 cups of rolled oats (avoid instant oats for your granola!) and roughly 1 cup of almonds. You really don’t have to be exact with either of the ingredients – if you go a bit over or a bit less you will not drastically change any flavours of the recipe. You could substitute the almonds for pecans, walnuts or even use a blend of the three nuts instead. It might seem like a lot of oats, but 3 cups will give you breakfast everyday for 1 week for 2 people so keep it in mind. This recipe can easily be doubled or tripled, simply use additional trays for the oven.

3 cups of oats, 1 cup of nuts to 1 standard size oven tray is about the ratio you want to keep consistent with. Otherwise you will have not so toasted and slightly soggy oats owing to the steam that generates between the layers in the oven. If you plan on making a big batch then you have to be patient and spread out the mixture across multiple trays. In the oven too you want to ensure the tray has direct heat – so no stacking up the trays either! The idea is to toast, not to bake with steam.

This recipe essentially starts with the apple caramel. I researched various ways on making this – quite often the recipe began with pre-made puree or apple sauce which is actually not that commonly found in Australia. My apple caramel starts with 1 apple which I pureed in my nutri-bullet (*not sponsored) until smooth. I poured this into a saucepan along with a tiny splash of water (literally less than a teaspoon worth), 1/4 cup of brown sugar, 2 tablespoons of maple syrup, 1/2 tsp of butter,1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and a pinch of sea salt. You can use honey instead of maple syrup if you wanted and you can substitute brown sugar for caster or raw sugar. The brown sugar simply offers a richer and deeper flavour profile owing to the molasses.

Substitutions for Maple Syrup

Could you use golden syrup or treacle? Absolutely! If you use golden syrup, ease up on the sugar. On the other hand if you wish to se treacle, you definitely should add more sugar. Personally, I am not a fan of using either in my granola for two reasons. 1. The flavour changes significantly and 2. You have to watch your granola in the oven like a hawk. Both ingredients burn very very easily so you need to keep your eyes peeled to ensure you aren’t developing any char.

To make the recipe vegan you can also substitute the butter for vegetable or coconut oil.

Making the Apple Caramel

To prepare the caramel simply heat everything through over a low heat on the stove top until you start to see a couple of bubbles. That’s it! Turn off the heat and set the saucepan on a heat proof mat. Continually stir the contents of the pot to cool everything down a little. Do a quick taste test and check if you need a little more sweetness or some salt. Once you are happy gently pour the caramel over the oats and nuts and use a spoon to mix the ingredients together in the baking tray. Spread everything across the tray in an even layer.

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Baking the Granola

Now we bake in a pre-heated oven at 150 degrees Celsius for roughly 30-35 minutes, tossing and mixing the ingredients every 10 minutes to ensure an even toast. This is key! You must toss around the oats mixture to prevent burning of the top most layer of the oats and ensure everything develops nice and even colour.

Once toasted it should look like the image above – golden brown and super crunchy. This by itself is granola good to go! But it wouldn’t really be an apple granola without some dried apple chunks. For my recipe I’ve added almost 3/4 cups of dried apple chunks cut into small pieces, and about 1/3 cup of goji berries. In all honesty I just eye-ball these amounts based on what I feel like on the day. If you want to have more of the oats and almond and not so much dried fruit, then by all means reduce the quantities. If you want to use pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds or even flax seeds, now is the time to add them in. You can also use other dried fruit like cranberries, raisins, and apricot.

Finishing touches

Yes of course you can add chia seeds. I don’t simply because the small seeds make their way right to the bottom of the granola. I always add them over the top of my breakfast instead.

To store the granola use an air tight container and it’ll last you a good month in a cool dry spot.

And here we have the recipe! This is super easy to make – I won’t lie, this is what I made while working from home. It can be done!!

Follow the recipe card below to make my delicious Toffee Apple and Almond Granola.

I hope you enjoyed this recipe! Share you cooking adventures with me @theminiaturelife on Instagram! As always leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Happy Breakfast Making!