Wake and Bake: Baked Oatmeal

I live in an 1930s-ish apartment building.  The place is huge and rent is cheap, and the building is pretty poorly maintained.  I use space heaters and put plastic and blankets over the windows and it's still COLD in the morning.

Especially in the kitchen.  We leave those windows uncovered because that's where all the plants go in the winter.  So it's even colder in the kitchen.  I have actually avoided eating breakfast or making coffee on multiple occasions because it's just too cold in there.

We call our pantry "the walk-in" between October and March, if that helps.

This past November I went on a mission to find all kinds of tasty oven-cooked breakfasts that would give me an excuse to roll out of bed, turn on the oven, and defrost my kitchen.  The first thing I discovered - and the most common, to date - is baked oatmeal.

I LOVE baked oatmeal.  I can't believe that I lived for so many years without it.  This recipe is versatile and easy, very forgiving of substitutions, and I can make it when I am half asleep and it turns out tasty every time.

BEHOLD, ingredients:

Super Flexible Baked Oatmeal

This is for an 8x8 or 9x9 pan, feel free to double and stick it in a 9x13 - I often do.

1) Dry ingredients:

1.5 cups rolled oats

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

(salt and cinnamon are optional)

2) Wet ingredients:

At least two of these three:

1 egg

1/4 cup melted butter or other fat

1/2 cup applesauce

I like to use all three, or egg and butter if I have no applesauce in the pantry.  You could probably make it with only applesauce (3/4 of a cup), but it would not be as tasty, and some fat is a good thing! If you omit or reduce fat considerably, you will need to grease the pan.

1/4 to 1/2 cup sweetener

(Depends on how sweet you want it to be.  Brown sugar, honey, maple syrup...whatever you have on hand is probably fine.  The 1/2 cup version tastes more like a cookie than a breakfast, but I think it pairs well with tangy yogurt.)

1/2 cup of liquid

I have used milk and apple juice, both worked great.  Non-milk milks (almond, soy, etc) would be fine.  Water might even be OK in a pinch.

1 tsp vanilla

(totally optional, don't fret if you're out)

3) Additions

1/4 - 1 cup of additions

Totally optional, whatever you have on hand.  I prefer walnuts and dried cranberries, but any dried fruit or nuts would be lovely.  If you use fresh fruit you may want to decrease your liquid slightly.

Steps:

I start by mixing dry ingredients:

Then mix in the wet ingredients, THEN my additions:

Then I put in my pan.  No need to grease unless you have decreased or omitted fat. 

It should be spreadable, but not liquidy.  Thicker than cake batter and thinner than cookie dough.  (Once I got it into the pan and it WOULD NOT spread because I had forgotten to add any liquid, at all.  The dangers of cooking before coffee...)  Anyway, you shouldn't have issues with the texture unless you've done A LOT of substituting.

Then bake for about 30 minutes.  When it's golden brown and just a bit crispy around the edges, it's good to go.

NOTE about serving:  If you insist on cutting it right away, it will crumble and be perfect served in a bowl with milk, or plain yogurt and a touch of honey.  If you let it cool all of the way, it will resemble actual bars and be good for portable snacking.  I love it when it's crumbly and warm paired with yogurt.  Perfect breakfast.

Total time: 45 minutes

Estimated cost: under $3 for my version, varies a lot based on the ingredients you use

Serves: 2-4 people for breakfast.  Maybe 6, if you serve with fruit and yogurt.  However, this does not mean you can make one pan for two people and have breakfast for two days.  It will magically disappear before that happens, trust me.

Tastiness factor: 5
Easiness factor: 5