Maple pumpkin seed granola

This granola has a light maple coating and plenty of loose oats between the pumpkin seeds. It is intended to pour easily rather than break into large, sticky slabs. The recipe makes six portions, with any milk, yogurt or fruit added separately at serving.

Choose oats and seeds for the tray

Use rolled oats for the texture shown in the recipe. Steel-cut oats are much harder pieces and are not a direct substitute in this short bake. Quick oats can produce a finer, softer mixture, so a bag of ordinary rolled oats is the simplest starting point.

The pumpkin seeds should be shelled kernels. Seeds still inside tough pale shells will not give the same bite. Plain unsalted kernels also make the small amount of salt in the recipe easier to control than an already seasoned snack mix.

Stir the dry ingredients together before pouring in the maple syrup and oil. Work the spoon through the whole bowl, including the bottom corners, until no pocket of dry cinnamon remains. The coating is deliberately sparse, so take time to distribute it rather than adding extra syrup to make mixing easier.

Watch the edges and allow a full cool

Spread the mixture thinly over the lined sheet pan. A thick mound can stay soft in the middle while exposed oats at the edges darken. At the halfway stir, move some of those edge pieces into the center and spread the mixture out again.

Look for a lightly golden color near the end of baking. Pumpkin seeds and small oat fragments can darken quickly, so check the tray rather than relying only on the timer. A darker edge is a reason to move or remove those pieces, not a reason to wait for every oat to match.

Leave the granola on the tray until completely cool. It becomes crisper during that rest, and packing it warm can trap moisture in the container. This recipe’s light coating means a mostly loose result is expected even after cooling.

Make the batch useful through the week

Divide the cooled granola into six portions before storing it if you want ready snacks. Keep the container tightly closed in a cool, dry place and follow the one-week limit in the card. Use a clean, dry spoon so moisture from a breakfast bowl stays out of the stored batch.

Sunflower kernels can replace pumpkin seeds, or ground ginger can replace part of the cinnamon. Keep those changes small on the first batch so the maple flavor is still easy to taste. For breakfast, add the granola just before eating if you want it to stay crisp over yogurt or sliced fruit.