The weekend before last, the morning before I was due to go on holiday…the very morning I had so much to do I told myself there was no way I would go into the kitchen and make a thing! I did venture into the kitchen, I just couldn't resist.

You see, a little idea had crept up on me, an idea that simply screamed ‘brunch’ and since I was hungry and the idea was simple I ended up in the kitchen whipping up a quick and simple baked oatmeal dish- carrot cake style. The perfect healthy filling mid-morning brunch, perfectly double portion sized so I saved the rest for the following morning for a hassle free breakfast before my flight. It was just as yummy served cold straight from the fridge!

I’d come across various recipes for baked oatmeal in the past, not least from two of my favourite blogs Chocolate Covered Katie and Oh She Glows, but I’d never made a baked oatmeal dish of my own before. I’m often an impatient kinda girl when it comes to my breakfast so bowls of oats and two minute breakfast cookies are my usual style. But this was worth the short wait and the bonus of a ready-made breakfast the following morning... oh yeah!

You could sweeten this up with a little more agave or a pinch of stevia if you preferred, I wanted a very lightly sweetened breakfast snack so for me this was perfect. Add some choc chunks and a little more indulgence and you could also have yourself a dessert!

My oven dish was slightly too small (note the dribbles down the sides), so I packed the remaining mixture into a silicone muffin pan hence the muffin in the photos. You make all the mixture the into muffins if you fancied. I reckon this mix would make between 4 and 6 muffins depending on size of the pans.

Recipe: Carrot cake baked oatmeal

Ingredients

2 carrots grated
1 tbs chia/flax seed
1 cup soy milk (or other vegan milk)
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg or ginger
½ cup oats
2 tbs chopped pecans or walnuts
2 tbs dried cranberries (or raisins)
2 tbs desiccated coconut
1 tbs coconut sugar/rapadura/agave
Topping- sprinkling of desiccated coconut and coconut sugar

Method

Mix all ingredients together until well coated and spoon into a greased oven dish*. Press down and smooth the top before sprinkling with a little extra desiccated coconut and coconut sugar (or other unrefined granulated sugar as desired).

Bake at 180C for approx. 20 mins until the topping is golden. Serve immediately. This also tastes good cold the next day!

*my oven dish was approx. 20x10cm in size and I had a little mixture left over that wouldn’t fit in so I filled a silicone muffin case as well.