DIY Delicious Dark Chocolate Quinoa Granola

I love granola, especially the sweeter, sugar filled the better. It's like pretending I'm eating something that is good for me...

My favourite 'bought' granola is the SchoolHouse Gluten-Free granola- the quinoa is just simply delicious. Unfortunately, SchoolHouse granola is pricey and I eat through it too quickly for my liking.

Since I now have more time on my hands, I decided to see if I couldn't try to make granola with quinoa using a recipe I found a few years back. I purchased some ingredients in bulk, realized I was missing a few ingredients at home, substituted some, made a delicious mistake involving chocolate and came up with the most yummy, delectable, sinful granola there ever has existed.

Lucky you, I am sharing!

Delicious Dark Chocolate Quinoa Granola

(Modified from Crunchy Domestic Goddess's recipe)

(NB: granola is a very forgiving product; you can replace ingredients, decrease sugars, add ingredients and it should be fine as long as you respect quantity and ratios. So if you look at this and think- whoa sugar! feel free to cut out the brown sugar, or use more honey and less maple syrup, or more oil and less sugar products. I also think you could just replace all the oats with quinoa and it would be fantastic).

Sauce:

1/3 cup of olive oil+1 tbsp

2 tbsp water

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

4 tbsp of maple syrup

4 tbsp of honey

Body:

3 cups of rolled oats

3 cups of puffed quinoa

4 tbsp of dark brown sugar

2/3 cup of chopped almonds

2/3 cup of pumpkin seeds

Post baking additions:

2/3 cup of dried cranberries

2/3 cup of dried blueberries

1 cup of dark 72% chocolate chopped

Pre-heat the oven at 275 degrees and using butter grease two baking sheets.

In a small sauce pan bring the sauce ingredients to a simmer over low heat.

In a large bowl mixed together the "body" ingredients. Pour the sauce and mix together. Scoop the granola onto the baking sheets, patting with a spoon to create an even layer (about 1cm thick). 

Bake for 30 minutes. Remove, attempt to flip and stir the granola and pat back down to 1cm layer. Bake for another 15 minutes (or until golden brown).

Remove, scoop into a large bowl and allow to cool for a few minutes. Add the dried fruit and chocolate while still somewhat warm. Mix together to coat the chocolate throughout the granola. (If you prefer chocolate chunks, allow the granola to cool completely before adding).

Now you have the most delicious tasting granola on the planet. Yum!