Oatmeal raisin cookie baked oatmeal.
For the first time in recent memory, easing back into the “real world” after the holidays hasn’t been as gruesome as I expected it to be. After our fair share of family fun and impromptu New Year’s parties and various friends in town, I think these quiet January weekends are still suiting us all right. Any brief attacks of post-holiday bluesy-ness have been quelled by things like: spending a Saturday night giving B2 an impromptu man-makeover (new discovery: I love buzzcuts), eating leftover Christmas chocolate for breakfast, streaming Friends on Netflix, and ugly-crying super hard at the latest episode of Parenthood. (That show gets me every time. But at least bawling my eyes out is cathartic?)
Food-wise, this baked oatmeal was my other way of easing off the holiday excess into something a little gentler and a little more nourishing. It’s cookies disguised as breakfast! Because I’ll never actually be ready to give up cookies and chocolate, I took all the flavors from my favorite oatmeal raisin cookies — plenty of cinnamon, a little bit of brown sugar, plump raisins (sorry to the raisin-haters!) — and put them into my new favorite way to eat oatmeal. Baked oatmeal has a dense, firm texture I can’t get enough of — a kind of comforting, resilient bite that drives away any thoughts of the watery gruel the kid in me used to abhor. Its stout substance reminds me a lot more of dessert than its just-add-water counterpart, but in truth it’s not any more indulgent. Once it cools, it’s sturdy enough to cut into slices, so it packs well and freezes even better — I reheat it with a splash of milk in a minute flat and it’s just as good at my desk as it was out of the oven. I love it with a generous dollop of Greek yogurt and an extra drizzle of honey or maple syrup.
Baked oatmeal is amazingly forgiving, and you can increase or decrease the ingredients to your own preference — there’s an extra egg in mine than most recipes call for, because I like the idea of a bit more protein and structure, and for lovers of other cookies, I’ve included a few notes on how you can swap out the add-ins below for a chocolate-chip version or cranberry-orange. It won’t be exactly like eating a Christmas cookie, but it’s filling, wholesome, and even a little bit healthy, while still reminiscent of holiday cheer. Quick, warming, doable on a chilly January morning, but still a treat.
Hope you’re all staying warm these days, friends!
I'm one of those oddballs who loves oatmeal raisin cookies almost (almost!) more than chocolate chip, so I was head over heels for this. But if you'd prefer another cookie hiding in your oatmeal, this dish is fantastically customizable -- for a chocolate chip oatmeal cookie version, up the vanilla to 2 tsp, omit the cinnamon, and swap out the raisins for chocolate chips. For a cranberry-orange one, add one to two tablespoons of orange zest, half a teaspoon of almond extract, and swap out the raisins for dried cranberries. It would also work wonderfully with a diced apple, or pear, or pretty much anything you can imagine short of ground beef. It's kind of my dream breakfast.
Ingredients
- 2 cups rolled oats
- 3 tbsp brown sugar
- 3 tbsp granulated sugar
- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 2 cups whole milk (or non-dairy milk of choice)
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- 2 tbsp butter, melted (optional; I didn't find that the oatmeal suffered without it)
- 1/2 cup raisins (or more or less, to taste)
- for serving:
- yogurt
- honey or maple syrup
- cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a 10-inch cast-iron skillet or 8x8-inch glass baking dish, mix together oats, brown sugar, ground cinnamon, baking powder, and salt until well-combined.
- In a bowl, whisk together milk, vanilla, and egg. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and stir until evenly moistened. Scatter the raisins evenly across the mixture and stir again to incorporate.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until golden on the edges. Oatmeal should still be soft in the center when removed but will set as it cools.
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