I’ve been craving carrot cake for weeks, but summer’s coming up quickly and I really don’t need to be eating cake right now. I decided to make carrot cake granola instead! It’s loaded with all of the goodies that you’d find in your favorite carrot cake: coconut, walnuts, raisins, and warm spices. I even got all trendy and threw in some quinoa, which adds a nutty flavor and slightly chewy texture. This is one of my new favorite treats – I keep disappearing into the kitchen to sneak a hand full. It’s also great sprinkled over yogurt – I recommend coconut or lemon!
Because the carrots and quinoa add so much moisture to this granola, it takes longer to make than my other granola recipes – about an hour total. You’ll start it at high heat to toast the oats and walnuts, then reduce the heat to dehydrate the carrots. The result is a great combination of crunchy, chewy, and soft textures.
Carrot cake granola is my contribution to this month’s leftover club, where food bloggers ship their leftovers to faraway friends. A bag of this carrot cake granola is headed off to Dani from Dining with Dani.
Carrot Cake Granola
Ingredients
- 2 cups rolled oats
- 1 cup shredded carrot about 2
- ¾ cup cooked quinoa
- ½ cup walnuts
- ¼ cup shredded coconut
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ginger
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg
- dash salt
- 3 tablespoons honey
- 3 tablespoons coconut oil at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ¼ cup raisins
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with a silicon mat or parchment.
- Mix fist 10 ingredients (through salt). In a separate bowl, mix together honey, coconut oil, and vanilla. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients; mix thoroughly. Spread in a thin layer on the baking sheet.
- Bake 15 minutes; stir. Reduce heat to 225F and bake 45 minutes, or until ingredients are dry and toasted. Remove from oven and let cool. Stir in raisins.
- Store in an airtight container.
Two questions. Coconut, sweetened or unsweetened?–Coconut oil: how do you measure it and mix it at room temp.? It’s solid.
Sam
I use sweetened coconut since it’s easier to find, but you can use either. At room temp, my coconut oil is a soft solid so it isn’t difficult to mix it into the honey. If yours is too hard (it might be this time of year) you can melt it down a little.
Thanks! Tomorrow, granola.
Sam
I was just thinking of a carrot (pan)cake today. Your granola looks great.
P.S.
I like the beef jerky you brought to Food Blog Forum.
The concept of this is wonderful! I tried it last night and unfortunately, had to throw it all away. 45 minutes at 225 was WAY off for my oven and I completely burned 90% of this. I just got busy doing something else and didn’t watch well enough. I will be making again though because the smell was fantastic and the raw ingredients were tasty.
I’m so sorry to hear that your burned! 🙁 Mine was barely toasted so I’m not sure why this would have happened unless one of our ovens if off… I’ll check the temperature on mine as soon as I can. (My other thought is that maybe my oven cooled off faster when I reduced the heat…)
are you cooking at 225 Fahrenheit or Centigrade – you should cook at 180C then reduce to 100C for the remainder
This is absolutely brilliant! Pinning now!
What a great idea! And probably a lot smarter than eating cake for breakfast, which I basically have to stop myself from doing on a fairly regular basis 🙂
A must try…. I put it on my list of recipes I need to try urgently! Great blog!
This looks wonderful. And carrot cake is one of my favorites, so being able to have it in granola is quite tempting
I’m crazy for carrot cake. It’s a treat I can’t resist. This is a must try!
Thanks for the tip about adding extra honey! I always get overzealous with what I add to my granola and never put in enough honey to get the crunchy clumps. Also, this recipe comes at a perfect time–I’ve been religiously counting calories and if I saw carrot cake’s caloric info, I’m sure I would die. This granola seems like a much better option for way less guilt 🙂
I make carrot cake oatmeal all the time, but never granola! This is sooo great! I think I’ll make this over the weekend. My yogurt needs some oomph.