Gingerbread Granola

The days are getting shorter and colder and I have been turning my mind to a lot of holiday baking.  Now if you know me you know that I am NOT a baker, I actually quiet dislike baking, I find it long, I am not great at it (although I can follow a recipe), so when it comes to developing recipes I perfer to spend my time working on savory foods and sticking to the cooking side of things. 

Now, where I will make some acceptions is when it comes to granola.  I am not a huge fan of it but it is something my husband greatly enjoys for breakfast and for snacks.  Problem is I am allergic to nuts which means by default he lives in a nut free house.  So year ago I started experimenting and playing around with making nut free, low sugar granola. 

This holiday season I thought it would be fun to test my hand at creating a gingerbread flavoured granola to top his chia seed pudding with in the morning and after some testing I think the product that came out is pretty delicious, but most importantly it was so simple!

When a recipe's instructions calls for tossing everything into one bowl stirring and then pouring out onto a baking sheet I personally get excited, for two reasons; one because I know if I mess it up at least I didn't waste my time and two because it is minimal mess.   This granola is just that, hard to mess up and minimal active time in the kitchen, plus it makes about 10-12 servings. 

Gingerbread Granola - Prep 10 minutes - Cook Time 40 minutes -Serves 10-12
3 cups Old Fashioned rolled oats
1/4 cup each pumpkin and sunflower seeds
1/4 cup flax seeds
1/4 cup hemp hearts
2 tbsp fancy molasses (read your ingredients and avoid added sugar)
1/4 tsp all spice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt (use good quality rock salt and not table salt)
1/2 cup good quality maple syrup
1/3 cup coconut oil, melted

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 300F.  Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. 
2. Place all dry ingredients into a large bowl and give it a nice stir to combine everything.  Add in maple, molasses and melted coconut oil in with the dry ingredients and stir until everything is well coated. 
3. Pour out the granola mixture onto the parchment lined baking sheet and place in the oven. 
4.  Now this step is INCREDIBLY important, although the granola will cook for 40 minutes you will need to remove it and stir it every 10 minutes so that it does not burn and trust me it WILL BURN if you set it and forget it. 
5. Remove from oven after 4 rounds of 10 minutes and allow it to cool on the baking sheet.  Store in an airtight container in the cupboard for up to 14 days.  If you would like it to last longer place half in a container in the freezer and remove when you are ready to consume.