Carrot Cake Granola

I've made carrot cake hundreds of times, carrot cake muffins a few times and even carrot cake cookies.  I am a bit obsessed.  It was even how my husband was able to strike up a conversation before I ended up marrying him 18 year ago.  That's a whole other story about being stuck in a blizzard away from home and craving Haagen Daaz Carrot Cake Ice Cream so badly...and he offered to drive out in his truck to get me some.  :)  Good memories even though I never did get that ice cream...  But I am seriously getting off course here.   The thought of carrot cake granola really never crossed my mind until this happened...



There I was, just innocently doing some shopping at Wegmans when I spied a bag of Carrot Cake granola.  And I had to buy it.  And, as you may notice, I apparently had to eat it too.  I really, really like granola.  But, in order to preserve some money in my wallet, I decided to try and make some this time around.



It had a lot of ingredients...more than my other granola creations, and then there was the whole grating of the carrots ordeal, but, wow, that first taste was amazing.  It tastes just like carrot cake!  Which means I get to have carrot cake for breakfast and snacks now, not just at dessert time.

If you have not made your own granola yet, this would be a spectacular way to give it a try.  This is one of those recipes that gets you hooked!  And the smell while it was baking??  Heavenly.  That's for sure.

Carrot Cake Granola

Ingredients:

• 3 c rolled oats


• 1 c puffed rice


• 1/2 c chopped dried pineapple


• 1/4 c flax seeds


• 1/4 c hulled hemp seeds


• 2 T chia seeds


• 1 1/2 T cinnamon


• 1/4 t nutmeg


• A few shakes of cloves, don't overdo it!


• 1/2 t ground ginger or about 1/4 in of ginger root, finely grated


• 1/2 c finely grated carrots


• 1/4 apple butter or spiced apple sauce


• 1/2 c honey


• 1 T olive oil


• 1/2 c chopped walnuts (or pecans)


• 1/2 c dried coconut

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 300


2. Combine first 9 ingredients, all dry, in a large bowl and mix well.


3. Grate ginger and carrots into dry mixture and toss gently to incorporate


4. Mix remaining ingredients into a separate bowl and mix well.  Add to dry ingredients.


5. Mix all ingredient very well until all dry pieces are lightly coated.


6. Press mixture into a baking pan, a jelly roll pan works well, and bake for about 20 minutes in preheated oven.


7. After 20 minutes, remove from oven and lightly break up granola pieces.  Put back in oven for about 30 minutes but increase temperature to 350 for final 10 minutes.


8. Put baking pan on cooling rack and let mixture cool for about 15-20 minutes.


9. Remove from pan and let finish cooling.


10. Store in an airtight container once the granola has finished cooling.

Enjoy,

Sheri