I live in Taiwan, where cereal is expensive. Beyond that, cereal is not particularly healthy. I took an old family recipe for baking granola and modified it to what I can acquire here in Taiwan and what I enjoy, in terms of flavor. Enjoy.

Ingredients List

Oats

Wheat Germ

Shredded Coconut (unsweetened)

Chopped Almonds

Sunflower Seeds (unsalted)

Brown Sugar

Cinnamon

Canola/Sunflower Oil

Honey

Vanilla

Craisins (dried cranberries)

Use the listed ingredients to create a dry mix, as follows:

14 c. oats – $200NT ($7US)

3 c. wheat germ – $75NT ($2.70US)

3 c. coconut – $100NT ($3.60US)

2 1/2 c. almonds $100NT ($3.60US)

2 c. sunflower seeds $50NT ($1.80US)

1 c. brown sugar $10NT ($.28US)

1 T. ground cinnamon $10NT ($.28US)

After the dry mix is established, heat your oven to 165C (330F)

You should have 24-25 cups of dry mixture.

To make a full recipe, you will need the following

2 c. oil $40NT ($1.50US)

2 c. honey $70NT ($2.50US)

8 t. vanilla $50NT ($1.80US)

Take 6 cups of dry mix and place it into a mixing bowl.

Make a wet mix in a separate bowl as follows:

just under 1/2 cup oil

just under 1/2 cup honey

2 tsp vanilla

Heat the bowl (oven 10min; microwave 1min)

Add it to the dry mix

Stir until it is well-mixed

Add the mix to an oven dish (metal or glass) and place in the oven at 165C (330F) for 45-50 minutes

stirring every 10-15 minutes

until golden brown on top

Remove from the oven and let stand until cool, then extract it and put it into a mixing bowl.

Add 1/2 cup of Craisins to each 7.5 cups of granola mix.

And mix

Store it in the fridge for up to a month; store it in the freezer for extended amounts of time.

Total cost for the 30-cup recipe is $800NT ($29US)

Total cost per cup of granola is $27NT ($.97US)

Nutritional information is as follows:

While the fat content is high, either natural (from the nuts) or a healthier fat (e.g. sunflower oil). The total sugar may be 30g per cup, but discounting the natural sugar from honey and coconut, the sugar goes down to 14g. In terms of nutritional information, 14g is not a lot of sugar, particularly for granola.

Here’s how it measures up to Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, GM’s Total, GM’s Lucky Charms, GM’s Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Kellogg’s Low-Fat Granola:

A lot of those numbers are disheartening. The Corn Flakes? Good God: you might as well be eating the box they come in. We add a lot of cellulose to processed cereals – we eat a lot of wood pulp. The nice thing about making cereal yourself, like this, is that it’s not bad, nutritionally (except for all the oil) and you know what all the ingredients are. And it’s delicious, obviously. I’d like to figure out a way to cut the oil and make the granola work. A future project, I suppose.