Blueberry Baked Oatmeal Recipe Notes
Baked oatmeal is one of my favourite make ahead breakfasts in the colder months. It's something I can get into the oven within 10-15 minutes, and then I have delicious easy breakfasts for my entire work week. If you are feeding a family, you could undoubtedly double the recipe and use a larger pan, though I haven't tried that. 

I love that this recipe uses really simple ingredients, and is naturally sweetened with dates. I have been using blueberries lately as my add in, but I wouldn't hesitate to experiment with other fruit. 

The baked oatmeal itself isn't very sweet, and I do tend to eat it with a generous amount of maple syrup. I want the oatmeal piping hot, and the maple syrup has to be warm in my opinion. I also spoon some unsweetened plain vegan yogurt along side. I never want the yogurt fridge cold either. A scattering of toasted chopped up almonds is nice, too. 

Cooling/Reheating

• If you want your baked oatmeal to hold it's shape in square or rectangle slices, you need to cool it completely and refrigerate before slicing and reheating. If that isn't important to you feel free to eat it right from the oven. 
• To reheat, I simply slice a portion and pop it in the microwave for about a minute and 30 seconds. I've been eating it lately with warm maple syrup, plain unsweetened probiotic vegan yogurt, toasted almonds, and sometimes peaches that I canned myself when they were in season. 
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Storing Baked Oatmeal

• I simply store my cooled baked oatmeal in the pan that I baked it in with some saran wrap over top. It's a small 8 X 8 inch pan so that works for me. I would eat this within 5 days tops, and I wouldn't freeze it. It's so easy to whip up and get into the oven there's really no need to freeze it in my mind anyway. ​
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Other Serving Options

• If you have any homemade blueberry preserves, a dollop of that on the plate with the yogurt would be delicious.
• Use any nuts you like best, if I wasn't using almonds, pecans would be my second choice. 
• Instead of lemon zest in the batter, try orange zest...but the lemon IS lovely. 
• I wouldn't hesitate to enjoy this with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and maple syrup. Or how about coco whip. If not for breakfast, an afternoon treat with tea. 

This chocolate zucchini cake is something I make every late summer/early fall, garden zucchini is plentiful. If you are a gardener, you know what I mean when I say all the sudden there's more zucchini than one knows what to do with. It's moist and chocolatey, exactly as it should be. I use a bit of tahini in my batter...I always like replacing some of the butter with healthier fats in baking recipes. I haven't tried it, but I would assume you could just use 100% butter instead of tahini if you had allergy concerns. 

I like to bake it in an 8 x 13 inch metal cake pan, but you could of course just as easily use two smaller circular pans for a layer cake, or bake them into cupcakes. For frosting, I am a peanut butter fanatic, so that is often my go to....but my second choice would be chocolate frosting...I'd even be inclined to put a bit of mint extract in the chocolate version...I also love chocolate mint!

For the chocolate factor in my cake batter, I simply use cocoa powder. I do like trying to buy something good quality and organic if it is available. ​

There are many brands of vegan butter, and I think any of them would work perfectly fine in this recipe. I often buy Earth Balance brand, because that is what is available, but I have started noticing grocery store brands selling plant based butter, and they are often the significantly more affordable option, so I'm inclined to start experimenting with those instead. You might notice that plant based products are scattered all over a grocery store. The "Earth Balance" brand I find in the organic health food section at the places where I shop, where as the grocery store brand example "presidents choice" plant based butter, is located with the regular dairy butter. 

The only question is, how are you going to frost your cake?! I love peanut butter frosting. I love peanut butter anything, so this isn't surprising. Chocolate, or chocolate mint frosting are also worthy contenders high up on my list!