Granola a Million Ways

Healthy eating...It’s trendy and getting trendier. White flour is slowly becoming the enemy and guilt is outweighing pleasure in eating bakery treats. It feels as if the croissant is no longer an acceptable choice, nor the cheese Danish a responsible breakfast meal (heartbreaking). Bakeries have to get creative to keep business moving and look for additions to the menu to keep customers coming in and finding viable options. One answer comes as more of an description than menu item; healthy.

One of the healthy alternatives that many bakeries have turned to is granola, an old friend of the past. But today’s granola is not like yesterdays. Granola is a melting pot of opportunities, a cabinet cleaner if you will. What happens to be on hand could make some very tasty meal replacements. It can range from cocoa nibs, to citrus rind to some dried fruit you forgot you had, it’s a choose your own adventure recipe that keeps customers happy and looking forward to variety. Another huge advantage is granola comes in all shapes and sizes. Chewy, sticky, or crunch it is a great topping for yogurt, a gem with some milk or a topping on a pastry or ice cream. Sales can even successfully transcend to a pretty take home bag with a pretty price tag. Granola is a great buffet item, an easy mail order and perfect for in-house use.

Every one's granola can be different but I suggest starting off with a base that makes the whole process faster and easier? No stove top work, no binding oils, no hand tossing to ensure even coating, just Abel & Schafer and Florenta. The steps are as easy as they come. Add the ingredients of your choice with the Florenta (02122) mix and bake. You can add dried fruit for a softer, slightly sticky granola or some water or left over egg whites for chewy granola or granola bars. The only hard part is deciding what to toss in the mix, and what to do with the time you are saving by starting with Florenta.

To show you how very easy it is to use Florenta, check out this YouTube video we made. http://youtu.be/fhGZeaM7TMA. In this video, we are making Florenta Brittle. That's a whole other post, which I promise to get to soon, but you will get the feel for the process.

See you Soon!

Sales Gal