Gluten Free Granola
When I was in New York a couple of weeks ago, I found a raw, vegan, gluten free granola made of mulberries and walnuts. It was absolutely delicious, though just a bit sweet for my palate.
I saved the package (it was made by International Harvest and they have other flavors as well), and this weekend found a dash of spare time to recreate their product without using the agave they add to sweeten it. I think it's quite sweet enough with dried fruit in it. The trick to making this granola is adding a ton of cinnamon (even more than the 1 teaspoon I have in the recipe below), which accentuates the sweetness of the dried fruits.
4 cups walnuts
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
½ cup water
4 dates, pitted
5 dried apricots, chopped
½ cup dried mulberries
1 teaspoon cinnamon
- Soak walnuts and salt overnight in a large pyrex baking dish (9x13)
- Rinse the walnuts, rinse the baking dish, then place the nuts back in the baking dish
- Place nuts in oven on lowest setting (our oven is 135°) and dehydrate for 24 hours or until crispy
- Once nuts are dehydrated, remove from oven and set aside
- Place dates and water in food processor and pulse until a smooth paste forms
- Add walnuts, apricots, mulberries and cinnamon and pulse until coarse, like granola
- Place in oven in large pyrex dish and dehydrate again for 24 hours or until crispy
- Serve as a snack or as cereal with almond milk
In addition to this mulberry walnut granola, you might also want to try my recipe for Gluten Free and Grain Free "Raw" Granola using almonds, macadamia nuts, raisins and pumpkin seeds.
I just spend the past 3 days at wonderful local conferences --Boco in Boulder and the Gluten Free Culinary Summit in Denver and had a blast.
Next up on my calendar are a couple of local cooking classes her in Boulder. The first is at the Culinary School of the Rockies on October 15th and the second is at Bauman College on October 28th.
Finally, if you are a Facebook user and want to get regular updates on Elana's Pantry happenings, check out my new page.
Posted on October 5, 2009 in breakfasts by Elana
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"Check out Elana's FAQ page for info on substitutions -- there are just too many possibilities so she can't answer all of these : ) But the Forums are an excellent resource and I highly recommend posting your substitution questions there; everyone is friendly and helpful." -Katie
Ohhhhh..... that looks so good. I have been obsessed with cinnnamon of late. I use teaspoons daily on flax "oatmeal", yogurt, sprinkled on fruit. Oh the possibilites.
Hi Elana,
This recipe sounds absolutely yummy and can't wait to try it!
It was nice meeting you in New York and I appreciate your signing my copy of your new cookbook and all your suggestions! :) I have just started a blog, please do visit as I will be posting more gluten-free recipes.
Hope to you see soon in NY!
Jyoti
http://nourishingspoon.blogspot.com/
yum- thanks! i have been looking into eating more raw foods lately and can always use a GF granola recipe. i assume the mulberries in the recipe are dried? i've never used mulberries before...
My favorite raw granola is from One Lucky Duck in NYC, but I DEFINITELY want to try your recipe as well!
oooo! GF granola that doesn't include oats! Thank you.
Have you ever heard of Laughing Giraffe Organics Granola? It is Raw, Vegan, Gluten Free, and delicious! It's a tiny family run company in the South West.
what's a good fruit to use in place of apricots? i have an allergy to them. =( love them but they hate me lol.
Would you be able to use dried mango? It has more natural sugar than apricots but is an excellent source of vitamins A, B-6, C.
I am definitely going to try this since I already have some crispy walnuts and dates ready. Too bad I didn't get any mulberries off our tree this spring, but I think I'll use some raspberries. Sounds delicious! Thanks for posting.
Oh! Thanks for posting this! I just went raw about a month now, and cereal is what I miss the most!!!! I can't wait to try it :)
Now that's my kind of granola! The kind you can pick up with your hands and munch on as a snack if you like. :-) I was asked to review some commercial gf granola recently and you could not even think about picking any of it up. Granola needs heartiness and substance. Love the extra cinnamon factor, too. I have some really high quality cinnamone that would work well in this recipe.
Best of luck with your continuing classes (or, lucky students I should say) ... must check out your new FB page. :-)
Thanks so much, Elana!
Shirley
That sounds delicious. I am in need of granola in my life right now.
How long does it keep for?
This sounds very like a bar I found at Costco when I was visiting this summer. It's called Trio because it has 3 dried fruits, 3 nuts, and 3 seeds in each bar, and all remaining ingredients were what you'd have on your shelf. Kosher, vegan, GF, and really yum. Reminded me of the peanut brittle of my youth! Too bad my GF daughter didn't like them...
I have been experimenting with making granola and none of it has turned out the way I like. I will surely try this recipe, it looks delicious!
Print Issue
Elana,
This looks great, as is the norm! Tried to print recipe to take to kitchen, but only the method and photo are available - not the ingredient list. Anyone else have this issue?
i just printed the post and the photo, ingredients and instructions all printed perfectly - give it a try again...
Yay! I will have to substitute other spices for cinnamon, but otherwise this fits well with my nearly-everything-restricted diet. Thanks for continuing to inspire us.
Brilliant idea for granola! Another variation which I often have for breakfast (as it must be eaten right away) is to combine 1/2 - 2/3 cup walnuts with 1 shredded apple, 1/2 cup blueberries, and 1 banana. I add to that a generous amount of cinnamon. Delicious and cleansing!
Yes, I did. The printer-friendly sometimes isn't always so friendly. I had another where there was such a big white space between the photo and the ingredients that it ended up being 2 pages.
Thank you for fixing the print issue :)
Made this last night but had to watch the time becuz our oven only goes to 225 at its lowest. And I took Stacie's suggestion of using mango, plus a little toasted coconut. Another winner, thank you.
Say 'hey' to the Bauman folks - they have got it good!
This looks really good, much different than the granola I've been making. It's wonderful how one food can have so many variations, each unique and delicious in it's own way.
I have so enjoyed hearing about all of the GF conferences. Sounds like you've been busy. Will check out the new FB page.
This looks really good, and would be great for those
needing a snack for traveling or hiking. I'm going
to try it soon.
I just got this out of my dehydrator this morning and it is delicious! I'm soaking more walnuts now to make more in the morning. I used fresh nutmeg, dried cranberries and raisins and frozen raspberries. It may have taken longer to dehydrate since they weren't dried already, but worth the wait! Maybe it's because I only have a tiny food processor, but the dates and water was kind of a messy (water spraying everywhere) affair. Is there another way to make it into paste or should I try mixing it all together before processing next time?
This looks WONDERFUL! I love that it's raw and doesn't contain oatmeal, since I can't eat even the gluten-free kind.
Thanks so much for this recipe. I just got this out of the dehydrator and it is delicious! I am soaking my walnuts for my next batch. I don't think it is going to last long here. I have been craving a GF, vegan granola. Yeah! Thanks for sharing all your wonderful discoveries with us. Such a blessing.
Love how it clusters up into little balls of goodness.
I have a question about soaking the walnuts in preparation for dehydration. I've never done this before so please bare with me as the answer to this question may seem obvious:
Soak the walnuts and salt in a pyrex dish overnight. That seems to imply that the walnuts and salt are immersed in water. Would I be correct in assuming so?
Thanks!
yes, enough water that all the walnuts are submerged, although I find that I have to put more because they soak up quite a bit of water overnight. http://editor.nourishedmagazine.com.au/articles/crispy-nuts
Correct me if I am wrong, but preparing a food at a temperature of 118F and over kills the enzymes necessary to call a food raw.
Do you bake it for 135 degrees for 24 hours?? Twice??
I wasn't sure if that was it, or heat the oven to 135, turn it off and put in the granola and bake...
(hoping I made sense)