lazy oat and carrot bake

I saw this baked oats dessert idea so many times on Instagram that I could not resist and finally tried it as well. It’s a kind of TikTok recipe, where you put together couple ingredients, that sometimes doesn’t really go together, and prepare in a way you usually wouldn’t choose (like making mash potatoes from potato crisps). And I didn’t even plan to post this recipe (it’s even hard to call this a recipe), especially that I really dislike the photos I’ve made. But came out that this dessert or breakfast idea is actually quite tasty and we’ve ate all in one and a half day.

So if you’d need to choose between buying a pack of oat bars (or pack of doughnuts), and making a little bit more healthy (and definitely cheaper) choice, I think this kind of oat bake is perfect. Especially that you can add whatever you like to this combination: nuts, raisins, peanut butter, fruits, chocolate, you can either use any plant milk you like or cow’s milk if that your choice. And it literally took me couple minutes to mix all ingredients in a baking dish. So even though it’s not my “go to” food choice, as I try to avoid lots of carbs, if I would like to treat myself with some home baked goodies I would choose this one.

I chose a mix of carrot and cinnamon, and all my sweetness comes from carrots, one banana and raisins that were already in my oat mix. For me that was just enough and I didn’t need any addition of any sort of sugar or sugar replacement. For you though it might be different, so don’t feel restricted by that. You can either add more banana or after baking drizzle it with some honey. Seriously this recipe gives you so many options, that each time you can make absolutely new taste with changing only one or two ingredients.

Because this kind of “recipes” usually doesn’t tell you the exact amounts of ingredients, I was just eye-balling the amounts of milk and oats. So feel free to experiment. From the amounts I’ve added my oats were quite dry – more like an soft oat bar, than actual porridge. But it was nice and crispy on top – especially when hot straight from the oven. If you add much more milk, you’ll get more loose and moisture texture.

I’ve popped couple pieces of organic raw chocolate – they’ve melted nicely over the hot oats. Also added some pumpkin and sunflower seeds to make it more nutritious and filling. I had a mix of oats, nuts and raisins, but if you have plain porridge oats they will work as well. Enjoy making your own mix of your favourite flavours.