Super Healthy GF Granola Bites

Hi there ! so if you follow me on Insta, you know we all love Granola at home and I bake it all the time for ourselves or on order. I also keep on trying new flavours and combos to improve texture and taste. I have a few really decadent ones (ok still much healthier then most of the commercial ones you can find, even in health food stores 🙂 but sometimes I also want to have the really crunchy nutritious healthy bite to eat on its own or with some plant yogurt and fruits. Something that will be different from a simple nuts handful and yet not as sweet as a regular granola.

Most granolas will require quite a fair amount of oil and sweetener to bind the grains and nuts together. If you want to decrease some of it, you can try banana/apple or even pumpkin sauce as a binder. But it can affect texture and taste (for those who don’t like banana like my mum :). For these crunchy bites, I used flax meal as a binder and it helped me decrease to a minimum the oil amount. Also those bring a nice nutty flavor and are loaded in healthy Omega 3 !! As for the sweet tooth, I give you some flexibility in the recipe below (I personally like it not so sweet, my kids prefer much sweeter 🙂 Cacao is optional but really recommended for it’s flavour and also nutritional goodness. Ensure though you buy unsweetened cacao and not highly processed dutch coco powder. Give it a go and let me know your thoughts. And if you are not looking for such a healthy granola, look for my other recipes on the blog. In any case, enjoy and bake food that do you good but also makes you feel good and that you look forward to eat !!

Ingredients

• 260 g oats (rolled or steel cut)
• 50 g buckwheat
• 45 g hazelnuts +20 g almonds chopped
• 55 g pumpkin seeds, roughly chopped + 20 g sunflower seeds
• 40 g flax seeds
• 25 g liquid coconut oil or extra virgin olive oil
• 185 g water
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 2,5 tbsp cacao powder
• 65 g coconut sugar (50 if you have less of a sweet tooth / 80 to 90 g if you feel like a little sweeter granola)
• 1/4 tsp sea salt (adjust to your taste but a pinch is good)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven at 120°C fan forced
2. Put in your food processor your flax seeds + 35g oats + sugar + cacao + water, oil and spices. Give a good stir and leave aside for 10 min to get your flax seeds to absorb some water
3. Put all your remaining ingredients in a large bowl and stir to combine them.
4. Mixer at high speed your ingredients in the food processor until you get a creamy texture (that’s what you are going to use to bind your oats, buckwheat and nuts)
5. Transfer it to your bowl and combine well unit evenly mixed.
6. Spread it on baking tray layered with baking paper and put in your oven for 30 min. At this stage you can already break down your clusters (I make really big ones to eat these bites a bit like a granola bar 🙂 but you can make small clusters too !
7. Ensure your layer is even and thin to ensure you’ll get crunchy clusters (otherwise if too thin it will still be moist in the center of the clusters)
8. Flip your granola layer after 30 min and put it for another round of 30 /45 min.
9. Check it is well baked and crunchy and leave it to cool down totally before transferring to an airtight container to keep for a few weeks or in your freezer for a few months.