Baklava Granola

I was suprised that there wasn’t already an easy to find recipe for this on the Internet as it seems like such an appropriate flavor for granola. The recipe below is basically a merging of Alton Brown’s granola and baklava recipes. It turned out really well, and the whole family enjoyed it. 

3 cups rolled oats

2 cups nuts (any combination of almonds, pistachios and walnuts)
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/3 t. cinnamon (or 2–3 inch stick, ground)
½ t. allspice (or 10 whole allspice berries, ground)
¼ t. grated orange peel (or 1 inch piece) (optional)

½ t. rose water
1/4 cup (2 oz) clarified butter (available as ghee in Indian markets, or make your own–see below)
3/8 cup honey
½ tsp. Salt

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

Combine sugar, nuts, cinnamon, allspice and orange peel in food processor until chopped but not pasty or ground. Combine with oats.

Combine remaining ingredients and pour over oat / nut mixture. Mix well.

Pour onto two sheet pans and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.

************

This tastes good with milk or with yogurt & honey. Adding fruit (dried cranberries) works well, too.

This recipe is easily doubled. You can still use just two pans, but be sure to stir well. 

Don’t worry about this needing refrigeration because of the butter. Because the butter is clarified, it keeps at room temperature indefinitely. To make your own clarified butter, melt butter in a pan on low heat. Cook until the top layer starts to turn to golden particles, about 15 minutes (keep an eye on it), then strain the butter with a sieve and several layers of cheesecloth. You’ll need about a stick (4 oz.) of butter to reliably make the 2 oz. of clarified butter for the recipe.