Baked Chocolate Oatmeal with Bananas

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 16

Bake of the Day: Breakfast -- Baked Oatmeal

Baked oatmeal for breakfast is a great way to start any day -- it's easy to put together, quite healthy and can be made for 1 or for a crowd in almost the same time.

I tasted baked oatmeal with raspberries at a cute little restaurant in Harrisburg last year and it has been on my mind ever since. I actually wanted to try the same recipe with raspberries but I couldn't find any good berries in the store. So ended up making this chocolate version because the kids would prefer this version over the berries.

It is very simple to put together -- mix all the ingredients, pour into the baking dish(es) and bake. The batter is quite liquidy to begin with so it takes a good 40~45 minutes to bake. I haven't tried it but I'm thinking that assembling the dish overnight and baking in the morning for breakfast would also work.
I skipped the egg and used egg replacer instead -- ground flax seed whisked with water would also work. When served with extra milk and maple syrup -- it tastes almost like a dessert and kids would love it.

Recipe adapted from here:

Ingredients: Serves 4

Old fashioned Rolled Oats - 1½cups

Bananas - 3 large, mashed plus more for the topping, if desired
Eggs - 1 (I used 1tbsp egg replacer whisked in 3tbsp water)
Unsweetened Cocoa powder - ¼cup
Brown Sugar - 3tbsp (add more if you want to make it sweeter)
Vanilla Extract - ½tsp
Salt - ¼tsp
Baking Soda - ¼tsp
Baking powder - ¼tsp
Milk - 1¼cups (Any dairy or non-dairy milk would work)

Method:

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease 4 6~8oz. ramekins or a 6" square casserole dish or a pie dish.
• In a mixing bowl, combine the mashed bananas with the eggs (or the egg replacer mixture), cocoa powder, brown sugar, vanilla extract, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Whisk until smooth.
• Add the milk and mix well. Make sure that there are no clumps of cocoa powder.
• Stir in the oats and mix well. 
• Pour into the prepared pan or pans and arrange the sliced bananas on top, if desired. 
• Bake for about 40~45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cut into 4 pieces and serve warm with syrup and milk on side.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 51.

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