Baked banana and peanut butter oats

For me breakfast is definitely not a hurried bowl of cereal, as I am hungry by 10am. It needs to be something substantial and just as importantly tasty. Oats feature heavily in many of my breakfasts, porridge and overnight oats being the main two to date.

Here I present to you baked oats.The prep takes 2 minutes and while they are in the oven for 30 minutes it is perfectly easy to shower, dress and get ready for the day ahead, then voila a warm soothing comforting breakfast.

I urge you to give them a try, the top is baked golden, like some sort of flapjack/cookie and the underneath is warm and soft, like a hug in a bowl.

Baked banana and peanut butter oats

serves 1

1/2 small banana (eat the rest while you wait!)
30g oats
55ml almond milk 
teaspoon smooth peanut butter
spash vanilla extract 
pinch cinnamon  (optional)

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C FAN. Mash the banana and then mix in all the other ingredients, just till combined. Spoon into a ramekin, or individual casserole dish.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes until golden, then dig in whilst warm!

A few notes. I used almond milk as I cannot have dairy and besides which it is yummy, feel free to use other milk. I do not like my breakfast too sweet. I find the banana and vanilla make it sweet enough. If you like things a little sweeter, try a teapsoon of maple syrup, agave nectar or brown sugar added to the mixture before baking.

The ramekin will look crusty and scary when you have finished eating, but adding boiling water to the pot and leaving for an hour will allow you to simply wipe it away.

Jumble cookies

I absolutely love to bake. Since I have been diagnosed lactose intolerant I have managed to keep baking pretty well, tweaks include using almond milk, lactose free spread, soya yoghurt etc.

When searching for dairy free recipes I more often than not come across vegan baking. Vegan baking is a whole new challenge that scares me though, why? The lack of eggs, eggs are normally a glue that binds everything together, how will my baking turn out? Still some of the pictures of the vegan recipes made me want to eat my computer screen, they loked so good. Mind you looking good is all very well but what about the taste.

I decided I wanted cookies and so looking round a few blogs I ended up making these jumble cookies. A mix match of a few recipes and what was in my head.

Oh my god. These are one of the best cookies I have eaten. I can't say for certain that it is solely down to the fact that they are vegan. The flavours together are simply divine. Oats, pecans, chocolate, raisins, vanilla. I am very surprised that the texture is so good without any dairy but I am so so pleased with them.

They are so insanely good that the two of us have managed to polish off 28 in 4 days.

Jumble cookies

makes ~28

100g pecans
180g oats
75g plain flour
tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch of sea salt
100g light brown sugar
30g coconut oil
tsp vanilla paste/extract
100ml maple syrup
2 tablespoons almond milk
35g dark chocolate
50g raisins

Preheat the oven to 160C/140C FAN and line a baking sheet with baking parchment.

Toast the pecans in a frying pan until they are releasing their fragrance. Add the pecans and half the oats to a food processor and pulse until the texture is that of coarse sand.

Tip this into a mixing bowl along with the remaining oats, plain flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and light brown sugar.

Gently warm the coconut oil in a pan until it melts. Remove from the heat and add in the vanilla, maple syrup and almond milk. 

Mix the wet ingredients briefly into the dry ingredients. Add in the raisins and chocolate and mix until evenly distributed. 

Roll tablespoons of the mixture onto the prepared baking sheets and then flatten with you hands. 

Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes until golden. When done remove from the oven and transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool.

I am really rather sad that these cookies are gone and will definitely be making them again. Perhaps with different nut and fruit combinations.

Now I am all out of cookies, its time to bake again and I might just get adventurous and try some more vegan baking very soon.

Nigella breakfast bars

So that is it. Lent has begun and so has my abstinence from chocolate. I would not call myself a complete and utter chocoholic, yes I love it and yes, if I am honest I have it most days, however I do not have it multiple times a day and occasionally turn it down (!) so therefore do not feel a complete addict...

The lovely Mark has decided to abstain too which makes both out lives easier, I do not have to watch him chomping it and he does not get biffed on the nose for wafting it in front of me one too many times.

A mini problem arises as I realise that he takes his breakfast to work everyday. His favourite cereal bar. His favourite chocolate cereal bar.

With this thought in my mind I began to think more about the commercial cereal bar. Most of which are full of sugar and not much goodness, and do not keep a man, or woman for that matter, full till lunch time.

I had heard a few people rave about the Nigella breakfast bars so decided to see if I these would be a more nutritious, more filling and chocolate free breakfast.

They are full of good things, oats, plain nuts, mixed plain seeds, dried fruit, a little unsweetened dessicated coconut and condensed milk. These seemed to me a much better thing to eat for breakfast regardless of whether or not they contained chocolate.


The exact recipe can be found here. The beauty of this recipe is that it is adaptable to suit your own tastes. I made a few tweaks myself. Firstly I used light condensed milk, it tastes the same and gives the same baked result. I also altered the amount of nuts and seeds slightly, purely based on the size of the bag the shop sold. Mark also requested prunes instead of apricots.

I had a couple of these myself as snacks before dance classes when tea was going to be late. They really kept me going, are very filling and most importantly delicious.

In the coming weeks these bars will be tweaked a number of ways for new exciting breakfasts and snacks. I have an idea involving apples, raisins and hazelnuts, if they turn out well I will be posting that recipe here very soon.

Fruit and nut flapjacks

Ah flapjacks, they start off so well don't they? You fill a bowl chock full of things that are good for you, oats, fruit, nuts etc. You then diligently turn and fill a pan with butter, syrup and sugar! However we must not lose sight of the fact that all the good stuff is still there!

Yes I am justifying to myself that these are an excellent energy boosting snack and perfect before dance rehearsals.

They are super quick and simple to mix up and a batch can be in the oven within 10 minutes.

These flapjacks are a bit of a hotch potch of things I had to use up in the cupboard, but I love love love the finished result. Peanuts will definitely be making a welcome reappearance in flapjacks again.

Fruit and nut flapjacks


makes 16


175g oats
35g chopped pecans
40g halved peanuts
70g dried cranberries
70g currants
140g butter
25g golden syrup
125g light brown sugar
teaspoon vanilla paste (optional)


Grease and line a suitable tin with baking parchment, I lined my brownie tin. Preheat the oven to 160C/FAN 140C.


Put the oats, nuts and fruit into a bowl. Gently heat the butter, sugar and golden syrup until melted. Mix into the dry ingredients until thoroughly combined. Tip the flapjack mixture into the prepared tin, level and lightly press down with the back of a spoon. 

Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes until lightly golden.

Leave to cool in the pan, when cool remove and cut into squares. 

These flapjacks keep in an airtight tin very well, and are robust enough to transport to work for an afternoon snack.

The vanilla in this is completely optional but I like the subtle hint of it in my flapjack. The total weight of fruit and  nuts in this recipe is 215g, as long as you keep to roughly this weight you could ring the changes with as many fruit and nut combos as you can think of! 

Banana and peanut cookies

Phew, busy busy week, such a back log of things to post. I will start with these cookies.

Once a banana gets a few freckles, that is it, I cannot eat it. I had two that did not pass my test and so I left them in a corner to become super ripe. When the time came to bake with them I did not want banana bread (a rarity, even I was surprised at myself) so I decided to make a banana cookie.

I was also super tired and so packed the cookie with lots of energy giving ingredients. Bananas. Obviously. Tennis players are always eating them. Peanuts, nuts are packed full of energy. And oats, lots of slow release energy goodness in these. Yes I know I am trying to make the cookies sound good for you. Which they are, they are good for the soul.

Now I know these are banana and peanut cookies but I did not buy peanuts, oops. So I put in reeces peanut butter chips instead. These are nice and I would put them in again, but as the cookie is a soft one I would also add chopped peanuts for a nice texture contrast.

These cookies are quick to make and have a nice strong banana flavour, the peanut really works well with the banana, its a fab combination.

Banana and peanut cookies


makes around 24


150g softened butter
175g light brown sugar
tsp vanilla paste
1 egg
2 very ripe bananas mashed
150g plain flour
250g oats
peanut butter chips and/or chopped peanuts 50g in total


Preheat the oven to 170C/150C FAN, and butter and flour two baking sheets


Cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla until smooth and creamy. Beat in the egg followed by the banana.

Mashed banana, perhaps not the prettiest...

Add the flour and mix to combine. Finally stir in the oats and peanut chips. 

Drop rounded tablespoons of the mix onto the baking sheet, leaving a gap between them to allow for spreading. Press the rounds down slightly and bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes. Leave to cool on the sheet for a couple of minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

These cookies are a different take on the classic banana bread and are fabulous straight from the oven but they will keep in a tin for at least 3 days (I do not know if they last longer, they did not survive past day 3...)