Lemon Berry Grawnola

This is my favourite “grawnola” that I’ve made so far! Yay! You can really taste the zing of berries and lemon and the colour is just gorgeous. In fact, it’s the colour that makes this such a delight to make.

Aside from 2 tablespoons of maple syrup, this grawnola is sweetened with all the wonderful fruit that gets blended up.

As I mentioned in my Apple Cinnamon Grawnola recipe, nearly all oats are heat treated and so not strictly a raw ingredient, however I am not a purist and I still consider this to be a raw recipe, plus I love oats!

Making granola, whether raw or cooked requires a mix of dry ingredients (your oats, seeds, nuts etc) and a really good syrup of some kind that gets smothered all over the dry ingredients and ultimately hardens up and creates lovely crunchy clusters of granola joy.

In this case, our dry mix consists of a beautiful mixture of the oats, seeds, flakes and chopped nuts that I personally wanted in here, but there’s nothing stopping you from substituting what you already have as long as you keep the quantities roughly the same. Try to swap like for like (seeds for seeds, dried fruit for dried fruit) if possible.

Our wet mix is virtually a smoothie and you may be tempted to just stick a straw in the bowl and slurp it up, but please just wait because it’ll be worth it.

I have used raw blueberry powder as one of my secret ingredients in this recipe. If you don’t have that then you can just leave it out, but I’d like to tell you a bit about why I like to use it anyway. Wild blueberries contain around twice the amount of antioxidants as the regular blueberries you buy in the shops, meaning they do a great job of neutralizing free-radicals and preventing cell damage in the body. Wild blueberry powder is extremely concentrated, meaning that the 100g of wild blueberry powder I buy contains 700g worth of wild blueberries! It tastes great, a little goes a long way and it makes everything purple! What more could you want?

Ingredients

wet

2 tablespoons ground flaxmeal

5 tablespoons water

1 apple

1/2 cup dates (softened in warm water if not already squidgy)

1 cup frozen berries

2 tablespoons maple syrup

2 tbs coconut oil melted with 2 tbs hot water (or just add water separately if oil is already liquid)

Juice and zest of 1 (unwaxed) lemon

1 tablespoon fresh ginger

2 tbs blueberry powder

1/2 tsp vanilla powder

dry

3 cups oats, whole work best - use certified gluten-free, if necessary

1/4 cup pumpkin seeds

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup dess coconut

1/2 cup coconut flakes

1/4 cup dried blueberries

1/2 cup chopped almonds

1/4 cup chia seeds

1/2 cup hazelnuts chopped

Method

1. Switch on your dehydrator and prepare 2 dehydrator trays with non-stick sheets.

2. Start by making your flax eggs. Combine flaxmeal and water in a small bowl and mix. Set aside for at least 5 minutes., until gloopy.

3. Once your flax eggs are ready, simply blend together all of the wet ingredients until you have a beautiful, vibrant mix.

4. In a separate mixing bowl, combine all of the dried ingredients and mix well.

5. Pour the wet mixture over the dry and mix well to incorporate until you have no dry bits.

6. Spread your mixture across the two dehydrator trays. Remember it will come out in pretty much the same shape you put it int the dehydrator, so you want to achieve the right thickness and clumpiness from the get-go. Take a look at my photos for reference. I tend to use a combination of the side of a spoon to almost chop into the mixture and spread it about and damp hands. You can break the grawnola into chunks after it’s done.

7. Dehydrate at 115°F/46°C for 24 hours. Around halfway through, you can carefully remove the dehydrator sheet and do your best to turn all of the pieces over. If this seems like an impossible task, you should be fine to leave it be, it just may take a little longer to dry. I don’t always do this and it all turns out fine.

8. To test if your granola is ready, remove a piece from the dehydrator and let it cool for a minute, as this is when it will really crisp up. If it has a really good crunch, it’s good to go.

9. Once it’s completely cool, store your grawnola in an airtight container. I like to use a nice big jar because I love to see that lovely glowing purple granola on my shelf!

My favourite way to eat this grawnola is to sprinkle it on top of a smoothie along with chopped fruit and a drizzling of hemp butter!