Caramelised Apple & Cinnamon Oatty Breakfast Pudding with Whipped Cream

It's time for a bit of Winter morning decadence

Ok. So. My husband raised doubts about whether or not the words ‘oats' and ‘decadence’ belong in the same sentence and I had a flash-urge to punch him. He’s always maintained an anti-porridge stance and for years referred to it as ‘catholic gruel’. Rude.

I have always thought that a delicious, creamy bowl of porridge can be incredibly indulgent with the right approach. For starters, do not involve water in your porridge-making under ANY circumstances. It’s not a workhouse in the fuckin’ 1800s, spring for the full fat milk for the love of god. Don’t cook it in a microwave – controversial, I know, but I just don’t think you get the same creaminess in a sad microwave that is haunted with previous heated up items like beans and fish. I am so obsessed with porridge consistency, it’s like a pathological fixation and one I suspect may well end up in the DSM-6.

Anyway, today’s recipe is not for porridge, I just needed to get that little porridge rant out of my system. This week I made a breakfast pudding that will appeal to anyone who likes porridge (all right-minded people), fans of bread and butter pudding and there’s even a kind of baked rice pudding vibe going on here. So calling all pudding fans basically.

This oatty bake (I cannot settle on a name for it) came about when I was planning the Christmas Eve brunch – I know, I know. What can I say? I like to think about meals for months in advance. I think it’s a way to wring even more pleasure out of them. For me, each meal has three acts: You daydream about them, then you actually eat them and then you fondly reminisce about them.

For the Christmas brunch, I will of course be doing savoury (more to come on this in a future letter) but I also wanted to do a breakfast dessert. Enter the dessert-breakfast love child below. It’s got a lovely feeling of breakfast but… fancier?! I do urge you to serve it with whipped cream, it is so SO good.

Caramelised Apple & Cinnamon Breakfast Bake with Whipped Cream

Serves 6

1 large or 2 medium apples, peeled and thinly sliced

2 tbsps of butter

4 tbsps of caster sugar or brown sugar

2 tbsps cinnamon

2 cups oats

2 cups milk

2 eggs

1 cup of frozen berries (I use the winter medley one but any mix is nice though I avoid the strawberries as they’re kinda too big for this)

Cream or yoghurt, to serve

Preheat the oven to 180°Fan. Peel, core and chop the apple thinly then generously grease an oven dish with butter (I used a 26cm by 18cm one).

Lay the apple pieces over the bottom of the dish and sprinkle over the cinnamon and sugar.

Pour the oats evenly over the top.

Whisk together the milk and eggs then pour this over as well.

Sprinkle in the berries and bake in the oven for 45 minutes or until there’s no wobble in the middle and the top is nice and golden.

Lil video here should you wish to watch the process set to calming music complete with woefully chipped nail varnish ;)