baking with steel cut oats

My friend Tracy recently wrote in and asked what to do with the leftover steel cut oats she has.  Her family doesn't really like eating oatmeal for breakfast in the summer and she'd like to use up the oats rather than leaving them to sit until next winter.

Steel cut oats are very coarsely chopped oat groats.  They cook up hearty and nutty, are tasty and have a lot of fiber making them a great choice for those who eat oats.  They can also be used for so much more than just oatmeal.  I have used them in chocolate chip "oatmeal" cookies when I was out of oatmeal.  I just substituted an equal amount of steel cut oats for the oatmeal.  The substitution does change the baking time a little so you need to watch them a more closely.  

Another good use for steel cut oats is to grind them in a food processor or coffee grinder to get an oat flour which can then be used in a lot of different recipes.  Oat flour tends to be lighter than wheat flour and has no gluten so it won't rise well.  This flour however is excellent for making cookies, biscotti, scones, muffins, and quick breads.  

My favorite use by far is to create steel cut oat pudding.  I was introduced to this by a friend from England and it is a truly yummy dessert.  It's fabulous all by itself and absolutely wonderful when served with vanilla ice cream.  

Freydis' Fabulous Pudding

1 C. steel cut oatmeal

4 C. water

1 C. milk

2 eggs

1 C. sucanat

2 T. butter

1/2 t. ground cinnamon

1/2 C. raisins

Toast the oatmeal in a pan until lightly browned. 

Bring the water to a boil, add the oatmeal, reduce heat and cook 20 minutes until done

Preheat oven to 350 deg F

Oil the inside of a 1.5 quart baking dish

In a large bowl mix together milk, eggs, sucanat, butter and cinnamon

Add in raisins and oatmeal

Pour into baking dish

Bake 30-35 minutes until done

Can be served warm, room temperature or cold.

Option:  Sometimes I vary this by substituting apple pie spice for the cinnamon and chopped dried apple for the raisins.  Delicious!

Enjoy!

photo courtesy of WikiMedia.org