Better Granola

Based on a recipe called "Seven Year Granola" I came across through the Kitchn blog.
Ingredients

• 2/3 lb quick oats, 1/3lb rolled oats
  
• whatever nuts you have on hand (up to 3c)
  
• 1tsp cinnamon
  
• 1/2tsp ground cardamom
  
• 1/2tsp ground mace (or replace all of the seasonings with a little less than 2tsp Penzy's Baking Spice mix, like we did)
  
• 1c dark brown sugar
  
• 1 stick unsalted butter
  
• 1/3c water
  
• 1/2tsp salt
  
• 2tsp vanilla extract
  
• a bunch of raisins or other dried fruit
  

Preheat oven to 300*F. In a cuisinart, grind 1/2 lb of quick oats into a fine powder. In a large bowl, mix all the oats (and oat flour you just made), the nuts, seeds, and spices, and set aside. In a small sauce pan, add the butter, water, and brown sugar, and heat until the butter has melted. Take off the heat and add the salt and vanilla and stir to dissolve. Pour this over the oats and nuts mixture, stirring until everything is uniformly damp. If you can't get everything damp, add a little extra water and stir some more. Let it stand for 10 minutes.

Spread the mixture evenly over a large baking dish, and then make several divisions with a spatula or something so that it's more like a series of clumps of granola. The basic idea is that you want to expose a little more surface area to the dry oven air so that you can get more clumps in the finished product. Bake for ~30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown. Remove from oven and gently stir the mixture around. This will break the mixture into slightly smaller chunks. This is OK. return to the oven and bake for another 15 minutes. Repeat this step (mixing and baking) until the granola is dry. Then set it out on a counter to cool. Once it reaches more or less room temperature, add all the dried fruit.

Thoughts: This granola is unique among the granolas we have made in the past insofar as it actually has CLUMPS of granola. Awesome! Personally, I could use to adjust the seasoning somewhat, and next time I will probably want to use more rolled oats and less butter. I hypothesize that the oat flour is responsible for getting things to stick together, so I can reduce the fat content a little and it'll be fine. We'll see. Otherwise, this is fantastic. Claire and I agree that it's probably the best granola we've made.

Disaster Index: 1/10