Walnut Granola Clusters

by on February 6, 2013 19 comments

Homemade Walnut Granola

You’re looking at the mother of all clusters.

You have been there, you have experienced the frustration, you’ve admitted defeat. You have felt the disappointment of non-clustering granola. While homemade granola is dandy with or without cluster, a granola that just doesn’t cluster is a real heart sinker, no matter how hard you stare at the bright side.

Well I’m done with all that. Deb Perelman’s recipe (from Smitten Kitchen) for Granola Crusted Nuts has given you, me , the world the gift of the largest clusters on the planet.  You can be certain of this because if my calculations are correct, any time you wrap an entire nut in granola, you’re bound to have clustering. Deb calls the recipe “Granola Crusted Nuts”…I call it granola. Because I ne’er will I make granola in any other way again, praise be.

I upped the ante on Deb’s recipe because I happen to have a superb bounty of walnuts, plus I made the recipe naturally sweetened with coconut sugar (hollaaaaaaa!).

Here’s how it works – you take the ingredients (minus the nuts) you would normally use for granola…

Homemeade Naturally Sweetened Walnut Granola

….pulse them in a food processor to give them a little chop.

Walnut Granola Clusters

Coat whole walnuts (or pecans or nut of choice) in an egg white, water and some oil and then smoosh the mixture all up in the walnut’s grill using your hands…aaaaaaah dig in!

Walnut Granola clusters

You bake. You cluster. You conquer.

Walnut Granola clusters

This formula will win you the gold at the World’s Largest Cluster Competition. And you’re in it to win. Now go….go cluster like you ain’t never clustered.

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Walnut Granola Clusters

Walnut Granola Clusters

Ingredients

  • 1 cup rolled oats
  • 3 tablespoons pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
  • ½ cup flaked coconut (shredded works too)
  • 1/3 cup coconut sugar (or brown sugar)*
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 egg white
  • 1 teaspoon grapeseed oil
  • 3 tablespoons water
  • 3 cups walnuts

Instructions

  1. In a food processor, combine the oats, pepitas, flaked coconut, coconut sugar, salt and cinnamon. Pulse until you have a rough chop but do not pulse until you get a flour.
  2. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
  3. In a large mixing bowl, beat the egg white until foamy (but not stiff). Add the water and oil and whisk to combine.
  4. Add the walnuts to the bowl of liquid and using your hands, make sure the walnuts are all completely drenched.
  5. Pour the oat/pepitas mixture into the bowl with the walnuts and use your hands again to coat the oats. The original recipe says not to mix too much or else the oat mixture will fall off of the walnuts, so I heeded this instruction.
  6. You will end up with more of the granola mixture than you need to coat the nuts. This is perfectly wonderful, because it adds little bits of heaven to the granola.
  7. Spread the coated walnuts out on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
  8. Bake for 20 minutes, carefully stirring the granola half-way through.

Notes

Recipe adapted from: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2012/11/granola-crusted-nuts/

http://www.theroastedroot.net/walnut-granola-clusters/

Thank you to everyone who participated in my Bob’s Red Mill Coconut Flour giveaway! A winner was randomly selected using a random number generator and has been notified via email! There will be another (woop woop!!) Bob’s Mill giveaway right here on Friday (1/8)!!

Walnut Granola

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