Candied Lemon Peel and Blueberry granola

 

 

 

I absolutely love making my own granola. It is so much better than the store bought kind and you get to add everything you like to the mix. Basic granola is so easy to make. This recipes is by far my favorite that I have tried. I recently made a blueberry granola from dried blueberries and I thought it was the best until I had the idea for adding candied lemon peels. Making your own granola is usually pretty quick you. You mix all the ingredients and then bake. However, this one is a little more time consuming for the lemon peels. Getting the lemon peels off is probably the hardest part of this recipe,but I feel that the freshness and flavor is worth it. This site shows some pictures on how they removed the peel spiflipflopfoodie. I have always thought blueberries and lemon flavors compliment each other. So I searched pinterest for candied lemon peel recipes the site I used was une-deuxsenses.

Recipe Ingredients
Candied Lemon Peels
2 lemons
1 cup sugar
about a Tbsp sugar for coating
1 cup water
Granola
3 cups old fashion oats
1 cup raw sliced almonds
1 cup sweeten or unsweetened shredded coconut flakes (I used sweetened)
 1/2 cup dried blueberries
1/2 cup of ground flax seed
1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt
1/4 lemon simple syrup from candied lemon peels
candied lemon peels chopped
lemon juice from your 2 lemons

Direction - Candied Lemon Peels
1. Wash lemons really well and take a knife cut lemon in half.
2. Use your knife and remove the peel. I ran my knife around the edge of the lemon pulp flesh and peel and removed the peel.
3. Try your best to remove the white pith with your knife carefully because this part is bitter.
4. Slice lemon peels into slices and boil the peels in water for about 5-10 mins until peels are translucent.
5. Drain the peels from the water and then bring another cup of water to a boil. Add sugar to the water and dissolve sugar. Once sugar is dissolved add your peels. Allow peels to cook in syrup for about 5-10 mins (while this process is going on make mix granola together).
6. Drain and remove peels from syrup. Place peels onto wax paper or plate and allow to cool. Save your syrup for granola because this will be a sweetener.
7. Once peels have cooled coat peels with sugar and complete cooled chop the peels for the granola.

Directions- Granola
1. Preheat oven to 300°. Mix the first 7 ingredients together (while the peels are cooking in syrup)
2. Once you completed all the instructions above add the chopped peels into granola mixture.
3. Use you lemon juice from your 2 lemons that you have peeled and strain into your simple syrup mixture. Mix the syrup and strain again to make sure it does not have bits of lemon. Add 1/4 cups of this syrup to your granola. Place extra into a mason jar or some container for sweetener for tea or other drinks.
4. Mix the granola. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray and/or coconut oil. Spread granola onto sheet. I had to split up the mixture onto 2 baking sheet. Bake for around 10 minutes until granola is slightly brown. I suggest to bake for 5 mins and then move the granola around to make sure it bakes evenly.
5. Allow to cool and enjoy!!