Joanne's Kitchen: Baked Oatmeal

Today we are doing some more investment cooking. If you aren't familiar with that term you might know it by other names, basically we are going to do some cooking today so that we can eat in days to come. We are going to make a pan of baked oatmeal that we can wrap in individual portions then heat and eat on mornings when we want a quick and yummy start to our day that will fuel us right up to lunch time.

There is one confession I need to make before we go on, even though I love baked oatmeal I really don't like regular oatmeal. I mean yeah, if it is the only option for breakfast for whatever reason I would probably eat it but I wouldn't enjoy it. However, baked oatmeal I look forward to eating. It is so good and can be changed up depending on the dried fruit you add to it. I find that with this recipe dried fruil works better I have a slightly different recipe that I make with fresh fruit that I will try to remember to post someday.

Today for my dried fruit had some dried cranberries leftover from something else and a few leftover dried apricots that I cut up to be about the same size. I then added some golden raisins to make the full amount needed. It is a wonderful combination but I have to say my very favorite combo is the dried tropical fruit that I used to buy. I haven't looked for it in the stores here but I am sure they have it too. Really any combination of dried fruit you like or have on hand will work really well. If you change it up every time you make it you will have a lot more variety. It's even okay if your dried fruit is a bit more dried than you would normally use. The baking plus the freezing will help soften it a bit. Not sure exactly how hard too hard is but I have definitely used some raisins that were getting to the almost hard as a rock stage and while they were a bit more chewy they were fine.

This time I baked in an 8” by 8” baking pan, I like to use this size because it creates a nice thin baked oatmeal that bakes quickly and also freezes and reheats quickly. Other times I have baked this in a muffin pan and also in a loaf pan. These result in a thicker product that will take longer to get baked through and will take longer to both freeze and reheat. It is really up to you what pan you use.

I do think that lining you baking pan with parchment is important just because you can lift out the baked oatmeal in one piece and easily cut it into the 4 pieces. If I cut it in the pan I find this much more difficult to get evenly size pieces.

You can find the downloadable/printable PDF here.

Baked Oatmeal

1 ½ cups old fashioned rolled oats

½ cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup milk

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup dried fruit of your choice, chopped if needed (about the size of raisins)

Preheat oven to 350°F

Prepare your baking pan by lining it (I used an 8”x8” baking pan and lined it with parchment paper)

In a medium mixing bowl combine your rolled oats, brown sugar, spice, and salt.

In a small bowl combine your milk, egg, and vanilla.

Add your wet ingredients to your dry ingredients and stir to combine.

Add the dried fruit and mix until well combined.

Spread into your prepared pan and bake at 350°F for 25 to 30 minutes, longer if you are using a smaller pan so your mixture is thicker. You want the mixture to be set and a pick inserted in the center should come out clean.