Heat oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease an 8-oz (250ml) capacity ramekin or spray with cooking spray.
Place all ingredients in the blender and blend until smooth.
Transfer to prepared ramekin, add your favorite toppings/mix-ins (see notes) and bake for 20 minutes, until puffed up and cooked through.
Serve hot.
Video
Notes
Nutrition is an estimate and only includes base recipe, no mix-ins!
Flavor variations:
Blueberry Lemon: Stir 12 blueberries and ¼ teaspoon grated lemon zest into the blended batter in the ramekin. Top with 4-5 more blueberries and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon coarse brown sugar, then bake.Raspberry Almond: Stir 6 raspberries and 1 teaspoon sliced almonds into the batter in the ramekin. Top with more sliced almonds, a couple of raspberries, ½ teaspoon granulated sugar and (optionally) some chopped dark chocolate, then bake.Carrot Cake: Stir ¼ cup finely grated carrot, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon and 2 tablespoons chopped pecans into the blended batter in the ramekin. I topped with a marzipan carrot, but you can also sprinkle on chopped pecans before baking. Or drizzle with cream cheese frosting after baking.Chocolate chip: Stir 2 tablespoons miniature chocolate chips (or more!) into the blended batter in the ramekin. I topped with a slice of banana and some chopped dark chocolate before baking - optional, but definitely pretty and delicious!Chocolate zucchini: Stir ¼ cup finely shredded and squeezed zucchini and 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder into the batter in the ramekin. Add an extra tablespoon of maple syrup or honey if you have a sweet tooth. Top with chopped dark chocolate, then bake.Peanut Butter and Jelly: Remove a scoop of batter from the middle of the ramekin. Fill with 1 tablespoon peanut butter and 1 tablespoon strawberry jelly. Place the removed scoop of batter on top. I sprinkled on some oats, coarse sugar and topped with half a strawberry before baking.
Ingredient notes
Oats: It doesn’t matter if you use quick oats or rolled oats. Since they are getting blended, you can use either. Steel cut oats will unfortunately not work, as they don’t blend down as finely as rolled types of oats.
Banana: If you don’t want to use banana, replace it with ¼ cup to ½ cup of your favorite milk. I will say this though: I cannot taste the banana in these. Bananas are not my favorite (I do mostly like them cooked or baked) and I can taste them in everything, but I cannot taste them in these baked oats. And neither can my banana-hating child. She still thinks I make her baked oats without banana, but I actually don’t ??
Honey: You can replace the honey with maple syrup or agave, not problem. If you want to use sugar in place of the honey, add 1-2 tablespoons of milk to the ingredients to make up for the liquid in honey.
Egg: I hear you can make these vegan with a flax egg, but don’t quote me on this because I have not personally tried it. From what I’ve seen/from experience, baked oats made with a flax egg will bake up less big and fluffy, because the egg does provide a portion of the rise in this recipe. Should still come out delicious though!
Recipe tips
I recommend using a strong blender for this recipe. You can absolutely use a strong immersion blender if you’re making a larger batch, an individual batch may not have enough volume to blend up nicely.
Do not worry about overmixing this batter, due to the lack of gluten, it’s fine to thoroughly mix and to also stir in the mix-ins very well.
Letting the blended batter sit for 5-10 minutes before baking lets the oats soak up the liquid better and makes for a fluffier little oat cake in the end! It's not mandatory though and they come out delicious without letting the mixture sit, too.
Do not overbake – baked oats come out DRY if you bake them too long. 20 minutes for an 8oz/240ml ramekin should be enough. 15mins for a 6oz/180ml ramekin.
If you are using a larger baking dish instead of making individual servings, you will need to increase the baking time. I recommend making 6 servings for a 7×11 inch baking dish, 4 servings for an 8×8 inch pan. An 8×8 inch pan should bake in around 30-35 minutes, a 7×11 dish in 35-40 minutes. I still strongly recommend to regularly check on your baked oats, as your specific oven and the specific dish you are using can change the baking time considerably!
Storage tips
These definitely taste best hot/warm out of the oven! And I try to never have leftovers of the blueberry/lemon flavor, as the lemon zest tastes strange once cooled for some reason.The other flavors keep well wrapped at room temperature for a day. I recommend eating leftovers cold, as they tend to dry out when reheated.