This granola clumps

Hello, General Cluster here, in your inbox to advocate for granola that looks like the rocky beaches of Maine. I used to be neutral on this issue. Clusters in granola, I thought — who needs them? In fact I felt smug, even superior, about it, and wrote a recipe for my first cookbook that was intentionally unclustered, each oat and nut an individual, independent, free.

A less-clumpy granola does have some advantages: It distributes more evenly over yogurt, and, speaking broadly, you can get by with less sugar if you want to. (Honey, maple syrup, and brown sugar can all help make a granola sticky enough to form clusters.) But there’s a major disadvantage to a cluster-free granola: It’s hard to eat out of hand, as a snack. Turns out, eating granola out of hand is a priority for me.

So I’m back on the clusterwheel. I’ve tried all the ways to get there. Egg whites can help, but there are other things I’d like to do with my eggs (especially in this economy). Another route: Pack your granola into a tight, even layer before you put it in the oven, and don’t stir it too much while it bakes, even if the recipe tells you to — it’s okay, rebel! There are so many clustering tactics that last year, we commissioned food writer Leah Koenig to test a bunch of them. She found that regular all-purpose flour is the best clustering agent. Good to know!

But you know what contains a lot of all-purpose flour and is often destined for my compost bin? Sourdough starter. So now, I use that. Charlotte Rutledge’s recipe is a near-perfect formula (you can’t really taste the sourdough tang), though of course all granola recipes are merely suggestions. For example, I never put the flax seeds in (they get stuck in my teeth), or the chia seeds (ditto), and if I don’t have pecans I use almonds (not quite as good), or I just leave the nuts out. I do love a chocolate granola, but adding cocoa is tricky, as it requires a lot of hydration, so I stick to recipes that specifically call for it. Otherwise, it’s a free-for-all. The only thing that matters to me now is that my granola is all clumps, no crumbs. Clumps the size of peanuts (in the shell). Or walnuts (in the shell). A golf-ball-sized clump would not be too big for me, but more demure clumps will also suffice. I’m not so picky. If the granola clusters, it passes muster.

• Our boy Martin Philip has a new recipe for ginger-rye shortbread:

• F.O.T.B.K. (Friend of Things Bakers Know) Erin Jeanne McDowell made stunningly cute and tiny cakes and put them on top of ice cream cones. Must see to really believe:

• It’s the time of year when everybody keeps talking about back-to-school. This was a traumatic time for me when I was a kid. Like, I knew I had to go back to school — why did everybody have to remind me? So I apologize to the children of America, because we, too, have a back-to-school list. At least it’s a list of treats.