Chocolate Chip Granola Grabbers -- Tuesdays with Dorie

It's time for Tuesdays with Dorie, yay! This week Michelle of Bad Girl Baking chose Granola Grabbers, great choice Michelle! The recipe calls for a few cups of granola and I decided that there was no better time to try to make my own. I browsed some recipes on allrecipes and came up with Cinnamon-Raisin Granola -- a Taste of Home recipe. Although I would have to change the title to Honey Coconut Granola since those were the predominant flavors for me.

Cinnamon-Raisin Granola AKA Honey Coconut Granola

4 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup raisins

In a large bowl, combine oats and coconut; set aside. In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, oil, honey and cinnamon; bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir in vanilla. Pour over oat mixture; stir to coat. Spread in a large shallow baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Cool. Add raisins. Store in an airtight container.

So easy, so delicious! It smelled amazing, honey, cinnamon, vanilla, coconut -- a favorite of mine, all of those scents mingling together. Wish I had a candle that smelled that good.

On to the cookies, I followed the recipe almost exactly except for the wheat germ. When I went to the store they were out, and I did not have time to place an online order so I found an equal substitute, Hershey's Milk Chocolate Chips, of course. Leave it to me to omit something healthy for milk chocolate. Sorry. Honestly, the only reason I added them was because I had a little bit of a bag left from making something and it was kicking around in my cupboard so I figured why not toss them in, these cookies have just about everything else anyway. I was going to toss in some white chocolate chips as well, but after adding the milk chocolate ones I decided I didn't want to overload these cookies with chips. I will have to find another use for that 1/2ish cup of white chocolate chips left over from something that I can't even remember making...

This cookie dough was THICK! It came together nicely, I kind of shaped it a touch, then put it on my new matfer exopat cheapie version of a silpat. This was my first time using the thing. I don't even know why I bought it other than I wanted to get something to reach my 4-for-3 amazon kitchen gear promotion... Anyway, I'm not that impressed. It worked fine but I did one sheet of cookies on my reynolds release aluminum foil and they held up better, the exopat ones spread too much, and yes, my pan was cool, it was the first batch in the oven. Oh-well. I was trying to get away from using aluminum to bake on because of the negative press regarding dementia and aluminum but I'm still clinging to my tin foil. I just can't stop using it. Sorry, went off on a tangent there, back to Granola Grabbers.

These were great, just what I expected from the recipe, although I wish they were just a touch softer. I like my cookies soft, dh likes his crispy. He said these tasted like a granola bar. I was surprised he had more than one bite because these had almonds and coconut in them, two things he hates! I had a nice time making them my family enjoyed them. Plus they got me to make granola for the first time, which turned out amazing, and I love granola so I see myself making a ton of homemade granola from now on. Successful TWD :)