Today, I bring your some delicious and Christmas breakfast-worthy Fruitcake Baked Steel Cut Oats, you guys!
The convenience of assembling at night and baking in the morning plus all the flavors in my husband’s famous fruitcake equals a delicious and Christmas breakfast treat!
For ease of browsing, here are all of my breakfast recipes in one place. Enjoy!
The Same Flavors, but Different Recipes
What happens when you take the same dried fruits and spices The Beloved uses every year in his fruitcake and use them to flavor baked oatmeal?
You get Overnight Fruitcake Baked Steel Cut Oats. Or Christmas Morning Baked Oats.
Either way, it’s chewy steel-cut oats in a Christmassy custard with dried fruit plumped in apple cider as well as diced fresh apples.
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And because it’s Christmas, it has streusel on top!
What’s Great About This Recipe
The main great thing about this recipe is that you can whip it up easily the evening before and then pop it in a 375F oven in the morning.
And in about an hour-long enough for everyone to open all The Presents–your Christmassy breakfast of baked oatmeal will be ready for you to enjoy!
Other things to love include the custard spiced with cinnamon, ginger, orange and lemon zest, and clove or allspice (or both if you’re a super fan).
The texture is also wonderful with the chewy oats and fruits, the smooth custard, and the crunchy streusel.
If you are a fan of different textures in one delicious bite, you’ll appreciate these baked steel-cut oats.
The fruits! I use a lot of dried fruit and some fresh fruit to lend lots of deep, jammy flavor as well as some brightness. Here’s the list:
- dried apricots
- dried currants
- dried cherries (tart if you can find them)
- crystallized ginger
- dried cranberries
- fresh chopped apples
Of course, if you are not a fan of any of these fruits, please substitute an equal amount of your favorites.
How to Make Overnight Fruitcake Baked Steel Cut Oats
This is easy to make, you guys. Here’s the rundown:
- Simmer your dried fruits in apple cider for ten minutes or so and let them cool down until they are just warm
- whisk together your dry ingredients (steel cut oats, baking powder, salt, spices)
- whisk together the wet ingredients (milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, citrus zest)
- spread the apples and plumped dried fruits in a pan
- whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and pour over the fruit
- refrigerate overnight
- bake, adding the streusel about halfway through the baking time
- serve warm with some cinnamon whipped cream
Q & A
Yes. Substitute an equal amount of old-fashioned oats. For best texture, do not use instant or quick-cooking oatmeal.
The only gluten in the recipe is in the streusel. Substitute your favorite cup for cup gluten-free flour blend for the wheat flour to keep the recipe gluten-free. You could also just leave the streusel off entirely. Your call.
Some Other Tasty Christmas Breakfast Recipes
Do you love to use your Instant Pot to make oatmeal? Here’s a great vegan recipe for Instant Pot Steel Cut Oats.
You may also want to give these whole wheat berry bars a try. Tons of berry flavor, minimally sweetened and with lots of healthy ingredients including flax meal and almond meal, they’re both a treat and a healthy breakfast option.
Try making them with at least some cranberries for Christmas, although you may want to up the sugar just a bit.
And gooey cinnamon rolls are also a hit. Maybe not so healthy, but if you can’t have a cinnamon roll on Christmas? I mean!
If you’re a babka fan, that might be an awesome choice for Christmas brunch. I have a chocolate babka (with two kinds of glaze) and a pumpkin babka (with pecan streusel) you may enjoy.
Credit Where Credit Is Due
My recipe is a spin on Dara Michalski’s Baked Steel Cut Oats recipe over at The Pioneer Woman.
A Note About Measurements
NOTE: Most of my recipes are written by weight and not volume, even the liquids. In this recipe, it is mostly written in cups except for the amounts of fruit, which I weigh.
Even though I try to provide you with volume measurements as well, I encourage you to buy a kitchen scale for ease of measuring, accuracy, and consistency.
This is the scale I use, love, and recommend:
Don't let its small price and small size fool you. The Escali Primo is an accurate and easy-to-use food scale that I have used for years. It's easy to store, easy to use, has a tare function, and easily switches between grams and ounces/pounds for accurate measurements.
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Overnight Fruitcake Baked Steel Cut Oats
Ingredients
For the Fruit
- 2 oz chopped dried apricots
- 2 oz currants
- 2 oz dried tart cherries
- 1 oz minced crystallized ginger
- 1 oz dried cranberries
- ½ cup apple juice or apple cider
For the Steel-Cut Baked Oatmeal
- ¾ cup steel cut oats
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- tiny pinch ground cloves OR allspice
- 2 cups whole milk
- 1 large egg
- ⅓ cup dark brown sugar well-packed
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- zest of 1 small orange
- zest of 1 small lemon
- 2 medium apples chopped (peeling is optional)
For the Streusel
- ½ stick unsalted butter
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- ½ cup all purpose or cake flour
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
For the Fruit
- Combine all the dried fruit in a small saucepan. Add the juice or cider and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes, until fruit has plumped up. Cool to warm.
For the Baked Oatmeal
- Butter an 8 x 8" square baking pan or a deep dish pie pan (I used a pie pan). Heat oven to 375F.
- Whisk together the oats, baking powder, salt, and spiced together. Set aside.
- Whisk together the milk, egg, sugar, vanilla, and citrus zest. Set aside.
- Spread the apples and cooled fruits evenly in the bottom of the prepared pan.
- Whisk the milk mixture into the oatmeal mixture until well-combined and then pour over the apples. Some will float. It’s okay.
- Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven, evenly sprinkle the streusel all over the top of the oats and bake an additional 20-30 minutes, until the oatmeal is set and the streusel is golden brown. Serve warm with a little bit of cinnamon whipped cream.
For the Streusel
- Mix all ingredients together using a pastry cutter or your fingers until the butter is well cut-in and the mixture is crumbly. Set aside at room temperature until needed.
Did You Make Any Changes?
Notes
Nutrition
And there you have it, friends. Overnight Fruitcake Baked Steel Cut Oats. I hope you enjoy them as much as we’ve been enjoying them.
Hi, y’all! I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and hopefully also learned a thing or two.
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Have a beautiful holiday, friends! Thank you for spending some time with me today, and I will see you after I am all Healed Up!
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Hi Jenni. A correction for you: Under How To Make Overnight Fruitcake Baked Steel Cut Oats, the second bullet reads “whisk together your dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, spices). As I couldn’t find steel cut oats In this listing, I think you meant to key steel cut oats instead of flour. The recipe listed on the bottom did, of course, list oats. Sounds like an amazing recipe.
Thanks for catching that! I will fix it right now. I appreciate it!