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Granola with Coconut Cream & A Berry Compote – The Food Series

Emily Hua

Thu Jul 23 2020

Emily Granola

The next few series will bring you through ways to fancy up your breakfast without breaking a buck! Let’s still aim to #flattenthecurve but have fun and enjoy home cooked meals. Stay safe and stay healthy. – The Meld team 

Breakfast can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be, but recent events have kept us cooped in our dens with copious amounts of time to waste. So as Victorians enter lockdown 2.0, why not channel all that dormant energy into something kinetic…better yet edible?

This time around our cooking activities will be different, for starters they’ll be considerably less strenuous than making things from scratch and will fit into your lockdown routine with ease. In stating that, there will be flair and the end result will leave you beaming.

The following recipes have your basic pantry items: eggs, yogurt, flour, forgotten veggies and spices and are designed to be easily adjustable!

Granola with Coconut Cream & A Berry Compote

Oh what, I’ve already reached my five-a-day fruit quota? Yes, yes you have.

All brunch joints have some type of granola bowl variation on their menu. The only gulf between you and those institutional places is pretty basic cutting and plating skills, plus one or two uncommon components like basil oil, coconut butter or homemade granola. I promise, you can achieve the same level of finesse in your home kitchen using a few essential pantry items. 

Feeds: one hungry person 

Ingredients: 

  • Coconut cream 
  • Granola or any type of crunchy oat/mix nuts 
  • Mixed berries (frozen blueberries and strawberries are fantastic)
  • A ripe banana (if you can get your hands on sugar bananas, they’re ace)
  • Milk of your choosing (I opt for soy) 
  • Citrus (orange, blood orange, tangelo, mandarin, lime, lemon, grapefruit etc.) 
  • Cinnamon or nutmeg 
  • Nut butter (optional) 

Method: 

  1. To make the compote first: bring mixed berries, citrus juice and zest (I used mandarin and lemon) to a light boil, sprinkle in some cinnamon/nutmeg and a splash of water if needed. At this point feel free to add sugar, this will help release more of the juices as well as add sweetness. You want your compote to be runny while your berries are completely soft through. Once you reach this point, turn off heat. 
  2. Now it’s all about assemblage: I prefer using a wide shallow bowl to build from. Don’t dump everything together, be nice to your ingredients. Add berry compote first, followed by granola, cut banana how you like and stack in the middle (or go to town with geometrical shapes), add a large dollop of coconut cream and nut butter on top of your banana stack, finish with a zesting of whatever citrus you used in the compote and cinnamon. 
  3. Pour milk in when you’re ready to devour. 

This piece and images were contributed by ex-Meld journalist and our very dear friend Emily Hua. Stay tuned for more recipes and good attempts from her and others in the team. Be sure to tag your creation to our Instagram to be featured in our page. 

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