Spiced date granola

Like baking my own bread, making my own granola's has become a part of my life in the kitchen. Everyone here in the house loves the granola's so why buy ready-made granola's at the store? Our favourite granola is with chocolate. Once in a while I want something else, so I came up with this recipe. If you never tried making your own granola's then you really should have a go! It's so easy peasy to make and very tasty! Not at all like the boring dry granola's which put me off making it in the past. This is different and I think the trick is the baking of the oats and nuts with a little oil, syrup and spices. I usually find adding cinnamon enough to give the granola a good taste, but in this recipe I made an exciting mixture of different spices.

200 g (2 cups) 4-grain flakes
40 g (1 cup) cornflakes
70 g (1/2 cup) pumpkin seeds
80 g (1/2 cup) dates
120 g (1 cup) mixed nuts
1/8 teaspoon (Himalaya)salt
1/8 teaspoon ground anise seeds
1/8 teaspoon cardamon
1 pinch ground cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon organic vanilla extract (Nielsen-Massey), optional
3 teaspoon organic canola oil
2 tablespoons maple syrup (grade C)
3 tablespoons Linwoods mix with flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower and sesame seeds, gojiberries

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C/ 356 F
2. Roughly cut the nuts and dates.
3. Place the oats, nuts, pumpkin seeds, cornflakes, salt and spices in a large bowl.
4. Add the maple syrup, vanilla extract and oil into the oat mixture and mix well with two large wooden spoons (or salad spoons).
5. Place the oat mixture on a baking sheet which is lined with baking paper. Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake the oat mixture for 15 minutes. Mix the oats occasionally during baking. The granola is ready when the pumpkin seeds swell and the granola is fragrant. Don't forget to turn the granola while baking and keep watching the oven to make sure none of the ingredients burn.
6. Remove the baking sheet out of the oven and return the granola into the large bowl. Mix in the Linwoods mix (or make your own hemp/flax mix) and the dates.