Baked Apple Banana Oatmeal

I love bananas, but sometimes they go brown a bit faster than I’d like. That’s ok, though, because bananas are great for baking. My first instinct, is to make the gorgeous apple banana cake (the bananas entirely replace the butter and oil) or the delicious banana oatmeal chocolate cookies (no butter, no eggs, no flour and no added sugar). I have also used ripe bananas to make a super fluffy and creamy stovetop oatmeal, and I thought it would be great to turn my baking escapades towards breakfast: let’s make baked oatmeal even healthier.

Baked oatmeal is a way to get that creamy goodness of oatmeal for multiple servings. Whether you want to serve a small army or in my case, feed me all week.

You can be equally creative with baked oatmeal, adding in your own favourite fixins and flavours.

For this version (adapted from a few places), I used the bananas more as a base for the oatmeal, so that it did not need any additional fat. It made it nice and creamy with a hint of sweetness. I added in chunks of apple, and because I used Pink Lady apples, they kept their shape well. Very well. They kind of separated the creamy oatmeal. This meant my oatmeal was a bit disjointed, but I liked it! Apple butter was used for a touch of sweetness and cinnamon and nutmeg provided a savoury background. Beautiful comforting fall flavours, great as a virtual hug in the morning. Bake this once and you have breakfast for the week.

Because I am trying the vegan route this month, I wanted to highlight chia seeds as an egg replacer. Here, I mixed 1 tbsp of chia seeds with 3 tbsp of warm water, and set it aside to soak for 10 minutes. You get a goopy mess, but it works well. I didn’t need to crush my seeds, either.

This is my submission to this week’s Weekend Herb Blogging hosted by Anh from Food Lover’s Journey.

Baked Apple Banana Oatmeal

2 cups old-fashioned oats
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tbsp apple butter (or your sweetener of choice)
1 1/2 cups milk (or almond milk, etc)
2 very ripe bananas, mashed
1 tbsp chia seeds soaked in 3 tbsp water for 10 minutes (or 1 egg)
1 tsp vanilla
1 apple, chopped
1/4 cup chopped almonds

1. Combine oats, wheat germ, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Set aside.

2. In another bowl, combine apple butter, milk, chia egg, vanilla and bananas. Combine the wet with the dry ingredients. Add chopped apple and stir to distribute.

3. Lightly spray an 8×8″ pan with cooking spray and pour in the banana-oats mixture. Bake at 375F for 15 minutes. Sprinkle almonds over top and bake for another 5 minutes. Serve warm.

Serves 4-5.

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