SteemKitchen Recipe Contest 6 (Week 5 breakfast): Chocolate coffee bean granola (vegan)

If you have a coffee addiction, I may just have the perfect breakfast recommendation for you (by feeding your addiction, not helping you come out of it!).

I must admit however, coming from England and living in China, I am more of a tea drinker than a coffee fiend, but I do enjoy the odd cup as a weekend treat. Many of my friends back in England also follow this ritual, but tend to use it on weekdays to stop them from snoozing on their daily commute. However, my German boyfriend, his family and his entire friends circle, religiously enjoy at least five cups of coffee throughout the day, everyday, just for pleasure rather than functional purposes!

His family love coffee so much that they decided to open a coffee roastery! What I like about his beans (and not just because he’s my boyfriend – I’m not marketing his coffee or anything!), is that they are gently roasted so they’re stomach-friendly, which is good for me, as I have issues with EVERYTHING (with IBS and all that shizzle). Although, I still prefer tea to coffee, but he doesn’t hold it against me!

Anyway, long story short, there are many leftover beans, which if not consumed or taken home by staff, go to waste. I hate wasting, so I just decided to take them home and coat them in chocolate (the grounds remaining from the beverages are an excellent fertiliser for your plants). I will say this- coating coffee beans in chocolate was one of the longest, most tedious processes I’ve encountered in my kitchen life, so don’t feel guilty if you buy them for the recipe!

However, if you do decide to make them yourself, use good quality chocolate (dairy-free if vegan) and apply the same principle to the coffee beans. The process involves sticking a pile of beans into a bowl of melted chocolate, coating them fully, pulling out a forkful at a time to let the excess chocolate drip through and then lifting each individual bean from the fork with mini tongues or tweazers onto a sheet of greaseproof paper to allow them to dry – and they can’t touch each other. Long right?!

But what do I do with the tonnes of chocolate coated beans, apart from give them to people as gifts or let them sit in my fridge?? Well if many people typically drink it in the mornings to keep them awake, doesn’t it make sense to incorporate them into breakfast somehow?! That’s how the idea of coffee granola sprung to mind. I’ve never actually made granola, but I’m not sure why. It’ so bloody expensive, but now that I realise how easy it is to make, my days of buying this stuff at extortionate prices is history!

Serving size:
Roughly 15 portions

Ingredients:
• Chocolate coated coffee beans (don't go too crazy!)
• 300g oats
• 75g walnuts
• 75g almonds
• 75g cashews
• 75g dried fruit (I used dried cherries and cranberries)
• 60ml rapeseed oil
• 60ml agave nectar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Combine together the oats, oil, honey, cinnamon and vanilla extract
2. Spread out evenly on a flat baking tray and bake at 150C for 35-40 minutes
3. Gently mix in the dried fruit and nuts and allow to cool.
4. Once the granola is cool, add in chocolate coated coffee beans
5. Store in an airtight jar or container.

Now you can enjoy an over-sized, non-expensive bowl of granola, with milk, or yoghurt or anything you want! I went all out and drizzled some dairy-free melted chocolate over the top, combined with a tad coconut milk to make it more of a sauce.