Banana Granola

My hubby loves granola for breakfast and I have made a home made version before but then someone mentioned banana granola and I thought, wow that I have to try.

You will be surprised at how easy it is to make your own granola and once you have done it and tasted it you will be hooked! Also the great thing is it will save you a penny or two as making your own allows you to make several batches with the same ingredients. You can vary the flavour with spaces, such as ginger, cinnamon, cardamon, nutmeg. You could add raw cacao powder or cacao nibs....Also you can play around with the nuts and seeds you use to give it varying textures and flavours.

The use of grains is also completely up to you and you can be as playful as you like. The only constant for this recipe is the banana. You want to use two ripe/overly ripe bananas to get a real banana flavour going.

These are the ingredients I used for this batch of granola:
2 ripe bananas
1,5 tbsp melted coconut oil
pinch of salt
3 tbsp chia seeds (or flax if you prefer)
1 dl flaked dried coconut (you could use shredded too if you prefer)
2-4 tbsp maple syrup (depending on how sweet you want the granola)
1,5 dl whole buckwheat (I soaked mine over night but that's not a must)
1,5 dl oats
1,5 dl spelt flakes
0,5 dl pumpkin seeds
0,5 dl sunflower seeds
0,5 dl walnuts

1. Preheat your oven to 170C. 
2. Using a blender, blend the bananas to a smooth 'soup' like consistency. Add this to a large mixing bowl.
3. Melt the coconut butter to the mixing bowl, add salt and maple syrup. Mix. 
4. Now add all the rest of the ingredients. Make sure all the dry ingredients get coated with the banana mix. 
5. Transfer the mixture to a oven tray covered in baking paper,  flatten the mixture out so it soccer the entire tray. The point is you want to get as much of the granola to get baked. 
6. Now bake the granola for 8-12 minutes, you want that first golden colouring of the granola. Then take the tray out of the oven and flip it, so the under side, the 'unbaked' areas get the chance to bake. Return the tray to the oven for another 8-12 minutes. 
7. Depending on how crunchy you want the granola you could go for another flip & mix and allow it to bake another 4-5 minutes but longer than that I cannot recommend as it will go hard, which isn't nice biting into. 
8. Allow the granola to thoroughly cool off, and transfer to a container. If you don't allow the granola to cool off it will create old within your container within the day. Believe me I have made that mistake before. 

Enjoy the granola with yoghurt, milk of your choice and some fresh fruit or berries.