Trufflehunter’s Granola
Tiny Trufflehunter woke up this morning with a hunger for granola.
He checks his recipe (with various annotations) and decides to make a double batch.
Tiny Trufflehunter assembles his ingredients.
8 CUPS large flake rolled oats
1/2 CUP whole wheat flour
1 CUP coconut
2/3 CUP brown sugar
1 TSP salt
1 CUP oil
1 TSP vanilla
1 CUP honey
He sets the oven to 325 F to preheat, even though his oven usually gets too hot. He will have to keep an eye on the time later – usually granola takes 20 minutes, but sometimes it bakes faster. Tiny Trufflehunter will just have to do his best and enjoy every step.
He whisks the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
Then Tiny Trufflehunter mixes the oil, honey, and vanilla together in a smaller bowl.
Once he adds the wet ingredients to the dry, Tiny Trufflehunter stirs them together. He makes sure everything is well mixed, with no big clumps.
Then he spoons half the granola onto two baking trays. He makes sure to spread it out nice and evenly.
Tiny Trufflehunter has to resist eating the unbaked granola. It smells very nice.
The trays go into the oven.
Someone big left their watch on the counter. It is most convenient for watching the time. Tiny Trufflehunter waits for 10 minutes.
The granola has started to smell even nicer. Tiny Trufflehunter uses his hot mitts to take the pans out and stir the granola.
The granola was already quite brown, so Tiny Trufflehunter only puts it back in for another 4 minutes.
The whole kitchen smells beautiful now, and the granola gets poured out into a deeper baking tray to cool off.
Tiny Trufflehunter fills the baking trays with the rest of the granola and puts them in the oven. This time he will only bake them for 8 minutes – he likes a more goldeny colour to his granola. He takes a quick break to read a page of his favourite book.
He also stirs the cooling granola, to keep it from sticking together.
The trays in the oven come out for a quick check and stir. The colour is almost perfect, so back into the oven they go for another 4 minutes.
When the granola is finished, Tiny Trufflehunter empties them into a second deeper baking pan. He then puts the baking trays into the sink with warm water and soap. Warm honey on a tray is just sticky. Cooled honey on a tray can be a hopeless case.
Both trays of granola get stirred every so often as they cool down. Tiny Trufflehunter forgot to do this once. Giant granola bars take a very long time to eat, and so Tiny Trufflehunter has not forgotten since.
Once the granola is completely cool, Tiny Trufflehunter pours it all into the big, glass granola jar on the counter. It fits perfectly. Soon he will make mountain jumble…
