Some foods are easier to photograph than others and…well…baked oatmeal is an “other.” It just is.
It doesn’t matter what I do to it or how good the light is, baked oatmeal is simply difficult to make into a beauty queen. It’s never going to be the belle of the ball. It’s oatmeal, after all. <—hey, that rhymes! 
That said, what baked oatmeal lacks in aesthetic appeal (dull brown and lumpy 😬😬) it more than makes up in delicious whole grain flavor. This one is especially enticing—it’s made with a hefty scoop of pure pumpkin purée and big hit of pumpkin pie spice for maximum seasonal breakfast magic.
It’s also very easy to make. The most difficult (if you can even call it that) step is toasting the oats, and that requires little to no actual brain power. Just scatter the oats onto a pan, put them in the oven, and set a timer. Boom. Done.
The rest of the process is simply adding dry ingredients (oats, pie spice, baking powder, salt) to wet (pumpkin purée, brown sugar, eggs, oil, vanilla, milk). Whisk ‘em together, pour the mixture into a greased pie plate and bake just until the center is set. Then just scoop it into bowls, adorn as desired and serve. Really, it couldn’t be easier.
My favorite thing about Pumpkin Baked Oatmeal? It reheats like a dream! This, in addition to being filling and fairly good for you, makes it perfect for weekday breakfasts. Just heat individual portions as needed and enjoy.
Of course, it’s also a great low-maintenance-but-still-“special” thing to make on the weekends. And I wouldn’t be disappointed to see it over the holidays.
Versatility, y’all. It’s a beautiful thing.
Pumpkin Baked Oatmeal
makes about 6 servings
2 cups old-fashioned oats (certified gluten-free for gluten-free)
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon Kosher or sea salt
1/2 cup pure pumpkin purée
1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups milk of choice
For serving:
maple syrup
butter
plain yogurt
Preheat oven to 375F. Grease a deep 9-inch pie plate or other casserole dish. Set aside.
Place oats on a dry rimmed baking sheet (or other large pan) and toast in the oven for 5 minutes, or until fragrant. Let cool a few minutes. Transfer to a medium mixing bowl and stir in pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together pumpkin purée and light brown sugar. Whisk in eggs one at a time, followed by oil, vanilla, and milk. Mix in oat mixture.
Pour mixture into the prepared pie plate. Bake uncovered for 35-40 minutes, or until the center is lightly set.
Let oatmeal cool for at least 15 minutes before serving with maple syrup, butter, and/or yogurt. Oatmeal is best warm or at room temperature.
Leftover oatmeal will keep covered in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. It reheats well in the microwave. 
Has anyone else’s week been five years long? Mine started with two babkas, three layer cakes and a Rosh Hashanah dinner, continued with some early morning construction in my apartment, and was followed up with a neck-ache and a midweek heatwave.
The good news is that NYC weather is finally starting to get with the autumnal program (I am so tired of summer clothes) and that my only plans for this weekend are to take my visiting godparents out for lunch and watch postseason baseball. Then two more work days before going on vacation next Wednesday—it can’t get here soon enough! But more on that later. For now, let’s talk about Cheesecake Swirled Pumpkin Bread.
Cheesecake. Swirled. Pumpkin. Bread.
Cheesecake Swirled Pumpkin Bread begins with a half-recipe of my 
To assemble, you’ll need the pumpkin batter and a small batch of cheesecake—don’t worry, they’re both easy to make. Set aside a cup of the pumpkin batter and put the rest in your loaf pan. Top it with the cheesecake, followed by the remaining batter. Swirl it all with a thin knife or skewer before baking for the better part of an hour. The bread will be puffed when it comes out of the oven, but sink a bit as it cools. This is just the cheesecake buckling a bit—not a bad thing.
This bread needs to be cooled at room temperature and then chilled in the refrigerator, making it an ideal make-ahead treat. Don’t rush to serve this. Pumpkin is a flavor that blooms over time and nobody loves room temperature (or warm 😬) cheesecake. Good things come to those who wait.
It’s that time! Tomorrow morning will be the first weekend breakfast of fall (even if you are regretting having packed away your summer clothes two weeks ago) and it should absolutely be this Pumpkin Puff Pancake. (And maybe bacon.)
This Pumpkin Puff is simply an autumnal take on 
Mix up your 
Pour it in a screaming hot pan with plenty of butter and go find something to do for roughly 17 minutes. I recommend figuring out which Emmy-nominated show you can manage to binge watch in its entirety before the broadcast on Sunday night (When They See Us! Pose! Fosse/Verdon!). Or, alternatively, if you’re local, determining which panel you’re going to attend at the 
Anyway…when you have decided to watch Sharp Objects and a few episodes of The Good Place…oops, sorry.
Top it with whatever makes you happy—I went for my usual maple syrup and confectioners sugar, along with some toasted pecans. Keeping it seasonal, you know, because it’s officially fall in my kitchen and on this blog.
It seems like I never make cookies anymore. I made them all the time when I started blogging, but they’re a little bit of a rarity these days. As it stands, I haven’t posted a cookie recipe since 
Whatever the reason, making these Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodles has been a welcome change of pace. I’ve been preoccupied by complicated things lately—think work, politics, 
Making cookies, y’all. It’s the most delicious self-care I know.
Also delicious? These Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodles. They’re an autumnal twist on a 
Now, before you go clicking away because you don’t want to have 48 cookies in your house, know that:
Each cookie is made from a tablespoon of dough, making each one roughly half the size of most drop cookies in my archives. I made them this way because:
I understand that not everyone may feel the same way I do; if you’re not into small cookies, you can scoop the dough in two-tablespoon increments and bake the batches for 11-12 minutes. You’ll end up with about two dozen medium cookies.
That’s what I love about cookies like this—the most complicated part is deciding how big or small you’d like for them to be. I don’t know about you, but that’s the sort of “problem” I could stand to have more often.
You can say a lot of things about me, but you can’t say I’m not committed to this blog. If you’ve seen my 
Some of you may be wondering what in the world I’m talking about, and I totally get it. I had never heard of babka before I moved to New York, but it wasn’t long before I became a fan of the chocolate variety. I mean, what’s not to love about soft yeasted cake swirled with chocolate?!
Cinnamon is another popular flavor of babka, but chocolate is definitely king. Seinfeld’s Elaine Benes famously called cinnamon babka 
Let’s talk dough. You’ll find all sorts of babka in NYC (and online). I’ve tried Israeli and Polish versions, and I’m sure there are more varieties. Some are flaky, some are feather-soft. Some have an exposed twist, while others look like any other bread until they are sliced. Some are baked in a ring; others are divided into loaf pans. I think this is why I had to make so many batches before I found a recipe I like.
This babka—my babka—is heavily adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s 
On the day you want to bake your babkas, divide the dough in half. Working with one portion at a time, roll it into a large rectangle.
Spread on the filling—in this case, a simplified pumpkin pie filling—before rolling it into a cylinder.
Briefly freeze the cylinder on a floured baking sheet before cutting off the ends and then slicing it in half lengthwise, thereby exposing the filling.
Carefully twist the two halves together before placing your unrisen babka in a parchment-lined loaf pan.
Repeat this process with the other half of the dough before letting babkas rise for 1.5-2 hours, or until they peek (peak?) over the tops of their pans.
Bake the babkas at 350F for about half an hour (or longer, if you are using light-colored pans). When they’re done, they should be deep golden on top, and a skewer inserted in the center should meet no resistance at all. If you, like me, get nervous about things being done, you can use a thermometer to check for doneness. The interior should be 190F.
As soon as you remove the babkas from the oven, brush them with a good dose of pumpkin spice syrup. You may think the amount in the recipe is too much, but it isn’t. If you try to cut back on this, you’ll miss the sticky glossiness that makes babka a cake rather than just a swirled bread.
As a baker, I am supposed to tell you to wait to enjoy your Pumpkin Babkas until they have cooled completely. As a human, I’m going to tell you that it’s totally okay to let them cool halfway in their pans before tearing in.
There’s just something about the combination of warm, fluffy brioche and pumpkin and autumnal spices that are nearly impossible to resist. I’ve eaten A LOT of Pumpkin Babka over the last two weeks, so I know.
Oh, yeah. There’s nothing basic about this babka.
e2 bakes brooklyn 