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These baked apples with oatmeal are a cozy fall dessert everyone will love. This recipe is dairy-free, gluten-free, and vegan-friendly.
The first time I made these baked apples, they far exceeded my expectations. As the apples cook, their juice escapes to the bottom of the pan along with some of the brown sugar and it creates pools of chewy apple caramel as it cools.
The simplest things in life really are the best, aren't they?
Each halved apple is like your own individual apple crisp. Because you really can't go wrong when pairing apple, cinnamon, and brown sugar together, the flavor is incredible on its own. But a scoop of vanilla ice cream or cocowhip on top is always a good idea.
Ingredients
- Apples - pink lady, Honeycrisp, fuji, or golden delicious are great options. I went with the pink lady.
- Old-fashioned rolled oats - use certified gluten-free oats if necessary.
- Oat flour.
- Brown sugar.
- Coconut oil or melted dairy-free butter.
- Ground cinnamon.
- Pinch of kosher salt - to balance out the sweetness.
How to Make Baked Apples With Oatmeal
Cut the apples in half, scoop out the seeds with a spoon, and cut out what's left of the core with a knife. Then arrange the apples in the bottom of a baking dish or an oven-safe skillet.
Mix the topping ingredients together in a bowl and then evenly distribute it over the top of each apple, lightly pushing it down (some will fall down into the skillet/pan).
Then you'll bake it covered for 25 minutes and then uncovered for another 20 minutes until the apples are soft and the oatmeal topping is lightly golden.
Make It Your Way: Substitutions & Variations
Please remember that recipes are just a starting point.
How can you make these baked apples with oatmeal using what you already have? Here are some ideas…
- No oat flour? – you can make your own by blending old-fashioned oats into flour or use all-purpose flour (gluten-free if needed).
- No brown sugar? - coconut sugar or maple sugar are great subs for a similar flavor.
- Add-ins - mix toasted chopped pecans or almonds into the topping, ground cardamom, or a pumpkin pie spice blend would also be a nice addition.
Top Tip
If you don't have foil, you can either bake the apples in an oven-safe skillet with an oven-safe lid or place a sheet pan on top of your baking dish. Both work great.
More Apple Desserts
Baked Apples With Oatmeal
Ingredients
- 3 medium apples
- 6 tablespoons old-fashioned rolled oats
- 6 tablespoons oat flour or substitute, see notes
- ¼ cup brown sugar or substitute, see notes
- ¼ cup coconut oil or melted dairy-free butter unsalted melted butter if not dairy-free
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- pinch of kosher salt
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 375°F/190°C and lightly grease your baking pan or skillet.
- Cut the apples in half, scoop out the seeds with a spoon, and cut out what's left of the core with a knife. Then arrange the apples in the bottom of your greased baking pan.
- In a small bowl, mix together the oats, oat flour, brown sugar, coconut oil or melted butter, ground cinnamon, and salt.
- Evenly distribute the topping over each halved apple, lightly pushing it down (some will fall down into the skillet/pan).
- Cover with foil, a lid, or a baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes, remove the cover and bake for another 20 minutes until the apples are soft and the oatmeal topping is lightly golden brown.
- Enjoy as is or top with vanilla ice cream.
Suzie says
I made this for a small dinner party we had last evening. I used Honeycrisp apples and they were large so I used 1 and 1/2 times the recipe for the topping. I cooked them in a cast iron pan and used foil to cover them. I did cook them an additional ten minutes because of their size.
They were really good! I topped them with a small scoop of vanilla frozen yogurt and drizzled a tiny bit of caramel sauce over the top. Rave reviews from our guests!
Lindsey says
The addition of frozen yogurt and caramel sauce sounds decadent and delicious! Thanks for taking the time to leave a review. 🙂