Fig and Ginger Cluster Granola

As smoothie bowls have entered into our regular breakfast rotation, Dr. S and I need a regular supply of granola as one of the toppings. We’ve been pretty happy with the various granolas that have come out of our kitchen, but I’m always looking for new ideas. I found Tara O’Brady’s take on this cereal concoction, in her cookbook, Seven Spoons.

Not only did her recipe have dried figs and crystallized ginger, it also had candied cocoa nibs. It was marked optional, but how can you omit sugar-coated chocolate? Most granola is just assembly, combining your oats, nuts, and seeds with your sweetener and your fat (yup, everything tasty has lots of fat in it). The BraveTart version calls for soaking the oats in buttermilk, and the twist in this recipe, is grinding some of the oats into flour, to help bind everything together.

I thought this granola was pretty good, but my family wasn’t a fan of the figs. I liked how the ginger provides little bits of heat, while the cocoa nibs provide the bitter notes.