Homemade healthy pear juice granola

For those of you who, like me, are not into overly sweet granola.

This weekend my husband and I went away on a short trip to the east coast beaches near Tauranga. We had breakfast at one of the lovely cafés. My husband ordered the homemade granola from the breakfast menu. It tasted amazing! The best thing about this particular granola was, that it wasn't overly sweet. I'm used to very sugary, sticky granola which I really don't like. Me being me, I immediately thought that I could make something similar myself so that we can enjoy granola all the time.

   

This recipe is adapted from The Kitchn. They put together a bunch of very useful tips on how to make good and healthy granola e.g. to stir in dried fruit after baking.

I had the idea of using juice instead of honey as sweetener, so I boiled down some pear and feijoa juice that was sitting in our fridge. It is a lot less sweet than honey and has a lovely fruity, slightly acidic flavour. As a result, the granola doesn't make clumps. It's rather like crispy toasted oatmeal. 

Homemade healthy pear juice granola

for the juice sweetener

1 cup pear juice*
1 tsp lemon juice

for the granola
2 cup old fashioned whole grain oats
1/4 cup mixed raw nuts (coarsely chopped)
1/4 cup pepita seeds**
1/4 desiccated coconut (optional)
1 tsp cinnamon (optional)****
1/4 tsp sea salt
1-2 tbsp coconut oil (melted and cooled) 
1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
1/2 - 3/4 cup dried fruit (e.g. apricot and raisins, coarsely chopped)

Preheat the oven to 150°C (fan). Line a deep baking tray with non stick parchment paper.
Add juice to a medium size pot, bring to a rolling boil and add lemon juice. Boil down over medium high heat to half a cup, about 30 minutes. Let cool.
In a large bowl whisk together the wet ingredients (reduced juice, coconut oil and vanilla extract). Add oats, salt and pepita seeds. Coarsely chop the nuts and add to the oat mix. Stir until the dry ingredients are well coated. 
Transfer mixture to the baking tray and spread out in a thin layer. 

Bake for about 20-30 minutes. You want it to dry out and toast rather than bake. Keep a close eye on it so that it doesn't burn. 
If using desiccated coconut, add it halfway through the bake to get perfectly toasted coconut. 

Let the mixture cool completely before stirring in the chopped dried fruit. Store at room temperature in an airtight container.

Notes
* Apple or any apple or pear mixed juice will work as well

** You can use any seeds you like, e.g. sunflower
*** I will experiment with different spice combinations in the future e.g. chai spice mix for the winter months