Turn Leftover Dried Fruit into Delicious Granola

Did you clear out your local supermarket of dried fruit mix in preparation for Christmas baking? No? Just me then. Well, like many, my Christmas celebrations ended up being much smaller than planned and I ended up with bags of the precious dried fruit even after making several puddings and cakes. So, say hello to dried fruit granola.

How to make dried fruit granola

What you’ll need

• 3 cups of rolled oats
• 1 cup of almonds, roughly chopped
• ¾ cup of sunflower seeds
• ¾ cup of pumpkin seeds
• 2/3 cup of agave
• 1-2 teaspoons of all spice (depending on taste)
• 1 cup of dried fruit mix

Directions

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius, and line two baking trays with baking paper. In a large bowl, mix together the rolled oats, almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, agave and all spice (if you don’t like all spice, you can use cinnamon or ginger instead). Spread the mix out on the two baking trays and bake for 10 minutes. Stir the mix and bake for another 10 minutes. Remove the granola from the oven and while it’s still hot stir in the dried fruit (adding it at the end prevents the dried fruit from drying out too much or burning). Store the granola in an airtight container for up to two weeks.

A couple of hot tips: get the good stuff when it comes to ingredients. Don’t go cheap. I prefer to use Uncle Toby Traditional Oats because they taste better, and Sunbeam do a great dried fruit mix complete with glacé cherries. And if you can’t find agave, you can use maple syrup instead.

You can serve the granola with yogurt, or I just like to down mine with full cream milk. It also makes for a nice gift. Just pop some in a glass jar and enjoy the gratitude.