Tuesdays With Dorie: Granola Grabbers

We eat a lot of granola around here, and I make it myself. (Buying it would cost hundreds of dollars a week — only a slight exaggeration!) I generally use Nigella Lawson’s Andy’s Fairfield granola from Feast (online at Food and Thoughts); it uses applesauce for fat and part of the sweetening rather than oil and a ton of sugar, and it’s pretty healthy as these things go — and we all like it. It’s not easy getting Husband to eat breakfast, but mix some Greek yogurt with fruit (frozen or fresh, whatever’s on hand) and some granola, and he’s a happy boy.

We ran out of granola this morning, and faced with the need to make more before I could make this week’s Granola Grabbers, I decided to try something new. I’ve had Melissa’s Seven-Year Granola bookmarked for ages, but I could never find the right excuse for making a breakfast cereal that includes large amounts of butter and brown sugar. These cookies provided that excuse.

I did not take a photo — I couldn’t trust myself around it long enough — but believe me when I say that butter and brown sugar are just the ticket. I used less than half the recipe for the cookies, so breakfast this week is going to be a bit less responsible than usual.

Then #1 Son wandered by and offered to make the cookies (well, the dough at least; he doesn’t trouble himself with “the boring stuff” — i.e., the actual baking). So I left the room, although I did return long enough to start shooting photos, and annoying the professional trying to do his job.

He had his own mise en place:

And he wasn’t amused when I placed myself between him and it to shoot some photos:

But, at last, the batter was made:

He added raisins to about a quarter of the dough — the quarter he was going to eat.

The dough for these cookies is delicious; between the two of us, we must have eaten 10 or 12 cookies’ worth. Baked, though, they lost something. They’re fine, good with milk and awesome with iced coffee (and probably with hot coffee, too, but we didn’t have any of that). But there was nothing terribly special about them. I don’t see myself making them again.

Husband: “I enjoyed them. I thought they were a little dry, but I like gooey cookies. The peanuts were a nice surprise.”

#1 Son: “Good with tea or coffee or something, but not much of a stand-alone dessert.”

#2 Son: “I liked them when they were soaked in milk, but they were too dry when they weren’t.”

To be fair, the recipe recommended them as an after-school snack, not a dessert. I think they’d be just the thing after a long day at school, but we don’t do that here; if it doesn’t work as Friday dessert, it doesn’t make it onto the roster.

If you’d like to see what other TWDer’s did, check out the website. And if you’d like the recipe, head on over to Bad Girl Baking, where Michelle has it all laid out for you.