Spiced Apple and Cranberry Baked Oatmeal

Beautifully textured baked oatmeal is ready in less than hour, including oven and broiler time. Apples, cranberries and spices join pecans, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds for all the goodness in this beautiful breakfast or brunch treat, just add maple syrup and yogurt.

Course Breakfast, brunch

Cuisine North American

Keyword apples, dried cranberries, maple syrup, oatmeal, pecans

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Servings 6

Ingredients

2 cups jumbo rolled oats
4 cups water
1 tsp kosher salt
1 Gala apple
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup chopped pecans
2 tbsp pumpkin seeds
2 tbsp sunflower seeds
2 tsp cinnamon, divided
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp coarse or granulated sugar, divided
maple syrup for serving
plain skyr or greek yogurt for serving

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 425F
Place the oats on a baking sheet and bake, stirring occasionally till they smell toasty and are golden brown. About 10 minutes. Keep the oven on.
Meanwhile bring the water to a boil. Add the toasted oatmeal and the salt. Stir and drop the heat to a simmer until the oats are softened and thickened, about 10 minutes.
While the oats are cooking, dice the apple into 1/4 inch cubes, reserving a few to slice on top (optional). Sprinkle with the lemon juice Set aside in a small bowl.
When the oatmeal has plumped up and most of the liquid is gone, stir in the diced apple, dried cranberries, pecans, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, 1 tsp of the cinnamon, the cloves, allspice and brown sugar.
Transfer the mixture to a wide baking dish. Smooth out the top. Sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon and 1 tbsp of coarse or granulated sugar.
Spread out the apple slices on top of the sugar (optional)
Place the dish on a baking sheet and bake in the oven until all the excess water has evaporated and the top is lightly browned and just firm to the touch. This should take about 10-15 minutes. Don't let it totally dry out though.
Remove the baking sheet and oatmeal from the oven. Turn the oven to broil.
Evenly sprinkle the remaining sugar over the top of the oatmeal, using approximately 1/4 cup of sugar.
Switch the oven to broil. the broiler. Watch, until the sugar has melted and caramelized. See Note.
To serve: combine 3/4-1 cup skyr or Greek yogurt and 3 tbsp of maple syrup and dollop some on each serving.
You can bake off the oatmeal ahead of time. Then simply warm it in a 400F oven for about 15 minutes before brûlée-ing the top with the sugar.
Options: Bake the oatmeal and just serve it with the yogurt; Take individual servings and place them in smaller baking dishes and warm as described above and then brûlée it.
Serve it up with bacon, toast, fruit etc.

Recipe Notes

For broiling, you can move the rack up to the upper third, but keep an eye on the apple slices so that they don't scorch. If you omit the apple slices, you can even move the rack higher for optimum sugar crust!