A better kind of vitamin boost

For the final recipe in our Sweet Summer Cooking series, Ralph Schelling turns to breakfast – with a homemade granola packed with quinoa, nuts, seeds and warming spices. Simple to make, endlessly adaptable and rather more appealing than the vitamin sweets of his childhood.

September may still belong to summer, but there is usually a moment when the mornings begin to tell a different story. The air is cooler, the holidays are winding down, and breakfast suddenly feels deserving of a little more attention.

For Ralph Schelling, that also means thinking about the colder months ahead – although his approach to getting a few extra vitamins has changed considerably since childhood.

Growing up, his mother would give the children typically Swiss vitamin sweets during winter, in the hope of keeping everyone healthy and thriving. They looked promisingly like toffees, Ralph recalls, but came with a slightly less appealing metallic aftertaste. Not that this bothered him much at the time: if something looked or tasted remotely like a sweet, he was generally prepared to eat it.

These days, his preferred vitamin boost is considerably more tempting.

Ralph makes his own granola and serves it with yoghurt and whatever fruit suits the season. Later in the year, that might mean persimmon, blood orange, sea buckthorn or dried barberries. The yoghurt can also be replaced with quark – something Ralph admits he does not particularly like, but nevertheless eats from time to time for its protein and low-fat content. There is, after all, the rest of the day for culinary indulgence.

The granola itself is wonderfully straightforward. Oats and quinoa form the base, walnuts and seeds add crunch, and cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger bring just enough warmth. Honey and olive oil bind it all together before a short spell in the oven.

And perhaps best of all, make one batch and breakfast is sorted for weeks.

Ralph Schelling’s Quinoa Granola

Ingredients

150g rolled oats
60g quinoa
50g walnuts, chopped
4 tbsp flaxseeds
4 tbsp sunflower seeds
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground cardamom
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp runny honey
3 tbsp olive oil

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Combine all the ingredients thoroughly in a bowl, then spread the mixture evenly over a baking tray lined with baking paper.

Bake in the middle of the oven for around 13 minutes.

Leave to cool completely, then break up the granola with a fork.

Serve with yoghurt and fresh seasonal fruit.

Stored in an airtight container, the granola will keep for three to four weeks.

Ralph’s tips

The recipe is easily adapted according to what you have in the cupboard. Try almonds, pine nuts, hazelnuts, pecans, desiccated coconut, pumpkin seeds or sesame in place of – or alongside – the walnuts and seeds.

Instead of honey, you can sweeten the granola with agave syrup, pear syrup, concentrated apple juice, or maple syrup.

If adding dried fruit such as apple, apricots, barberries or cranberries, wait until the granola has cooled before mixing it through.

And just like that, our Sweet Summer Cooking with Ralph Schelling series comes to an end: four recipes, four very different tastes of the season, and plenty of reasons to keep cooking long after summer has officially left us. You can follow Ralph on Instagram

Jeanette Wichmann