Baked Pear & Blueberry Coconut Porridge/Oatmeal - Bakemas Day 17

Pecan Chocolate Orange Oatmeal Cookies - Bakemas Day 1

Bakemas round 4 here we come!

Almond & Brandy Christmas Porridge/Oatmeal - Bakemas Day 17

If there’s ever a time to sneak a little brandy in your breakfast it’s definitely Christmas.
Full disclosure: I'm not saying you should do this everyday, I do not promote breakfast drinking...I just promote Christmas...and eating...and recipes...and maybe they contain brandy...occasionally...when the season calls for it.

Sticky Toffee Porridge/Oatmeal with Coconut Cream & Toffee Sauce - Bakemas Day 3

What’s a winters Sunday without an elaborate porridge recipe!

It’s been pretty cold here recently and the frosty mornings are in full swing; there’s something about a frosty morning that makes me so happy inside, it just looks so magical. So Sundays mean cosy pyjamas, hot chocolate and a warm breakfast in front of the Christmas tree.

Orange, Almond, Pomegranate & Dark Chocolate Fluffy Oatmeal/Porridge - Bakemas Day 11

I’m either really early for Mondays breakfast or incredibly late for Sundays, or I could just eat it for dinner because breakfast for every meal is fine by me.

Coffee Oatmeal/Porridge with Cherries, Chocolate & Coconut

Warm, cosy, wholesome caffeine-filled breakfast on a chilly morning topped with cherries, chocolate, blueberries and seeds; count me in.

I am 100% the definition of “it’s the little things”, I get excited about the most ridiculous things. I started writing this list around midday to put down as a caption for my daily photo but I thought it might be nice to add it on here too and it's kind of perfect for this recipe.

Apple, Raspberry & White Chocolate Oatmeal Crumble - Bakemas Day 9

It’s been almost 2 months since my last crumble post (do I sound like I'm at a crumbles anonymous meeting?) so I think it’s probably acceptable to put this up now and this recipe was a complete accident.
I was re-testing the crumble topping for the berry oatmeal chocolate chip crumble I posted in October so I was using apples as we had an abundance off the tree hanging around begging to be used up. As the prepared baker I am I went to the baking cupboard to find no dark chocolate, the likely hood of my mum eating the chocolate out the baking cupboard is probable to pretty high, the only thing I was left with was white chocolate or 80% dark chocolate, so white chocolate it was. The idea of having white chocolate and apples wasn’t at the top of my “to try” list so I threw in some leftover frozen raspberries from the chocolate and raspberry triple layer cake, I know, I know, that was in August, what can I say, we’re not big raspberry people, but I bunged them in and magic happened.
I really didn’t think I’d enjoy it so much, it was just a means to test out the topping. I thought it would be entirely too sweet but the unsweetened fruit and slight sharpness from the raspberries really balances out the sweetness of the white chocolate. I pretty much ate half the crumble for lunch; in my defence it was a small crumble. So now that crumble story time is over, although probably a little too in depth, are you ready to make this? It’ll take you a couple of minutes to throw together and then you can wander off and peruse the Christmas tree...or do something useful.

Roasted Plum & Ginger Fluffy Oatmeal/Porridge - Bakemas Day 8

It’s not quite freezing here but warm breakfasts are always nice this time of year especially if you wake up to a cold house. I’m still battling that cold so a healthy warm breakfast is exactly what I need.
This porridge is made by toasting the oats and boiling the water and letting the oats absorb the liquids so that it’s nice and fluffy and not starchy and slimy like most porridges. I love making porridge like this, it gives the oats a slightly nutty flavour and having soft juicy sweet roasted plums on top is a nice way to have your fruit in the morning and makes you feel all cosy inside, even if there is a little sugar on them.
I finally found time last night after dinner to cosy up with pj’s on and watch a Christmas film, I suppose that's the only slight sliver lining to being ill but I still have the same amount of things to get done and less time to do them in.

Berry Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Crumble

This is a little bit of an odd one today. I made this recipe over a year ago and I am 90% sure I posted it, I have no idea what happened to it I just realised a while ago that it was sitting in my drafts folder with a title and nothing else, the post was completely blank. I’ve kind of been putting off re-writing this, not that I’m really sure why but a year on I think it probably deserves to see the light of day and it’s strangely coincidental that in my last post I used the same bowl. Anyway, enough about my potential incompetence and on to this delicious crumble recipe. The whole point of this recipe was to turn (probably) my favourite cookie, oatmeal chocolate chip, which I actually made a couple months ago on here, into crumble, maybe I was just looking for an excuse to eat cookies for dessert and make it seem entirely acceptable because in my head crumble is healthy, doesn't matter what you add to it. Obviously fruit is always healthy so we have a winner! Perfect for autumn or fall and still perfect for summer although it’s definitely a lot more like autumn here especially as the ground is covered in leaves which sadly were soggy today due to the rain so you didn’t get that satisfying crunch as you walked over them it was more of a squelch. I like that word, squelch.

Healthy Cranberry, Coconut & Pumpkin seed Oatmeal Cookies

I feel like this recipe is a PERFECT excuse to have cookies for breakfast. It’s basically porridge in a cookie. I made this recipe over a year ago when I was doing a month of no processed sugars and wanted to improve on it and well...honestly I just wanted cookies. They may not be the prettiest cookies you’ve ever seen but for what they lack in looks, they make up for in flavour, although my mum saw these in the kitchen and actually asked me if they had cheese in them, nope, definitely not. I’ve been trying to be a little healthier and add more protein into my diet due to my lack of meat consumption recently, I wouldn't really call these protein cookies but they have the ingredients with every intention of giving you a bit of a kick in that department, does that make you feel better about eating them? Also, did I mention there's no processed sugar or fat in these YOU'RE WELCOME!

Fluffy Oatmeal/Porridge with Sautéed Cinnamon Apples

If you don't like porridge you will like it like this!
Breakfast is definitely a meal I love, muesli, crunchy cereal, pancakes, coffee, pastries; can you tell I’m not a savoury breakfast lover? The breakfast options are endless I just don’t always like to eat breakfast for breakfast. Porridge was one of those gloopy foods I was never really interested in until a couple of years ago when I tried everything to make porridge enjoyable, apart from this. I got this idea from cookie + kate a while ago who I think got it from someone’s cook book. Anyway this porridge is amazing, this is nothing like the gooey sloppy porridge you remember, it’s not gloopy or starchy it’s fluffy and full of toasty flavour.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies (FMP Cookies)

Frustration hits and the best thing to do is get in the kitchen. I sort of forgot that this is what I love to do, over the past couple of months I’ve been so busy and preoccupied with other things, which I will explain some other time, and now all the stress is over but when I’ve not done something like this for a while I start to think everything has to be perfect. I mentally plan what post would be the best post to come back and that the redesign has to be finished and exactly the way I want it, I get so caught up in the details and end up putting everything off because of it.

I have a frustrating problem with my site that I can’t solve right now because my headache is making it difficult to stare at the screen so the perfect thing to do now? Put on an apron, some music and just bake!

So on to the important stuff; FMP cookies, otherwise known as oatmeal chocolate chip. Being an art student they have these things called final major projects (FMP) which involves a couple of months of being lost and not knowing what to, about a month of finally deciding what to do, getting inspired and a lot of procrastinating and about 2 solid weeks of late nights, messy bedrooms, film marathons, very little sleep and in my case excessive amount of hand cramp from hand sewing words. I actually watched and first 3 x-men films (this was back when only 3 films were out) on repeat for about a week. But when all night art sessions are involved, snacks must always be involved, no one has time to stop and worry about eating cue an abundance of FMP cookies. A friend and I used to make these cookies enough to have a constant stream of them, although with slight variations probably involving different sugars and she added glacé cherries but I can only imagine how many we got through in the space of those few weeks.

Oatmeal chocolate chip pancakes (whole wheat & sugar free option)

I had been thinking about making these for a while, when a friend stayed over I finally got round to it and our reactions went as so; "umm these are good - oohh these are really good - these are - urrghh - they just - and the - and its - duuudddee". 

I know most people are butter and syrup people when it comes to pancakes, something that is incredibly baffling to me, butter melted on your food? what even is that, just why. Although, I'll admit I've never been a fan of butter on anything (unless it involves garlic). I'm not sure how many people do this but any pancakes I make I eat with greek yogurt, I don't know why it's just insanely appealing to me. I don't know why more people don't do it, unless I've missed an entire bandwagon floating by me. Don't get me wrong I'm usually all about the crepes and I feel like if you even uttered the idea of melting butter on them you should be shunned, but I'm sure somebody has done it and enjoyed the fatty fluids atop their pancake; maybe it's a delicacy in some remote part of the world that I don't know about (and here's where you all scream an obvious country that does it). 

I do occasionally get cravings for american pancakes however the majority of american pancake recipes I've tried usually end up feeling heavy, sit for a long time in my stomach and aren't as light and fluffy as I imagine them. I know what you're thinking, whole wheat flour and oats in pancakes, how are those not heavy, but I promise you they're not. I've found after a few times making these to tweak the recipe that these pancakes are the kind of food that just gets tastier the more you eat. Even my mum thought the banana was strange at the beginning and she gave me a sort of "they're okay" response but then she proceeded to eat 2 more. If you're not used to banana in pancakes then you may find the first bite a little strange, but take another bite they will not disappoint, and if you're not a banana lover you're preaching to the choir but they're barely noticeable after the first bite.

Chocolate chip "porridge" cookies (sugar free) with homemade chocolate chips

If I was a london commuter I would 100% be the person that runs on the train just as it's about to leave looking a little flustered; with a coffee in one hand that almost spills everywhere, and a bag that almost gets caught in the door. I'd be the person who after walking up the train, sits down, finally finishes rustling about then proceeds to eats her breakfast on the train; and this is what I would take. I imagine everyone would be sneakily glancing at me with looks of slight annoyance and disgust that I'm eating chocolate chip cookies for breakfast; little do they know these cookies are almost like non-messy porridge to-go with all the taste of a cookie and non of the processed rubbish. Now don't get me wrong I wouldn't eat cookies for breakfast everyday...I'd eat pancakes too!

Peanut butter oatmeal cookies (sugar free)