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Spiced Hot Fruit Bakeis a deliciousand healthy holiday breakfast! This gluten free spiced hot fruit bake also makes for a great topping for waffles, pancakes, or simply by itself! A nutritious dish to add to your Holiday Brunch menu. Easter, Christmas, Mother’s Day, or New Year’s brunch. Vegan optiontoo.
Hey friends! I hope your enjoying the Holiday season so far!Just letting you know thisvegan Spiced Hot Fruit Bake recipewas originally published in December 2015. I retested and updated content and photos. I really wanted to re-share this goodie of a Holiday recipe because it makes an amazing brunch recipe, dessert, or breakfast topping. Heck, I make it year round! I hope you don’t mind me republishing. Thank you for following Cotter Crunch Y’all!
Reason number 524,600 I love Christmas… THE SMELL! You know, the smell of spices, the smell of christmas morning breakfast.. ahem cinnamon rolls and eggcasserole and um.. Christmas brunch Cranberry Almond Cake! And being married to a Kiwi, I get re-live all these “Christmas Smells” with him. It’s summer season during Christmas in New Zealand. Hard to really enjoy those cozy spices or winter fruit when it’s 95F. Right? Haha.
So today, it’s all about bringing back the nostalgia via food! Specifically,spiced hot fruit bake! A family favorite around here.
How to Make Spiced Hot Fruit Bake {Video}
Easy Spiced Hot Fruit Bake
My mom used to (and still does) make spiced hot fruit bake for Christmas and New Year’s brunch. Although, in the south, we call it Hot Alabama fruit. Don’t ask me why, I guessed Alabama or claimed it first. Haha! Actually, I’m thinking it’s because this traditional southern spiced fruit bake is more butter and sugar than fruit. We Southern’slove our buttah! I’m a southerner, I know this!
That being said, I’m determined to lighten this dish. Less sugar, more spice, etc. Besides, fruit is already sweet! Yep, and now I am even more determined to make this hot fruit bake dish ” healthy-ish.”
I know, gasp! Southern folk will disown me, once again, for healthify-ing a dish. But hear me out, because you’re gonna like this. A hot spiced fruit bake that taste so rich and buttery and sweet and smells like Christmas. Please excuse my run on sentences, but I can’t help but exaggerate this dish.
This fruit bake, it’s simple really (much like my caramelized apple cider fruit bake). The key is to have the right amount of extras and the right ingredients. Fresh seasonal fruit and seasonal spices. Such as pears, apples, cranberries, cinnamon, nutmeg. etc. Mmm… can you smell goodness?
Now.. to make it we need to mix the fruit up with spices, a little coconut sugar, and just a little (or more) of melted butter, or coconut oil or vegan butter (for the dairy free option).
Toss in some some toasted nuts and WHOA… you’ve got yourself a spiced hot fruit bake that tastes like dessert, but isn’t.
5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star
4.9 from 23 reviews
- Author: Lindsay Cotter
- Total Time: 0 hours
- Yield: 5 1x
Description
Spiced Hot Fruit Bake {Gluten Free, Vegan option}
Ingredients
Units Scale
- 2 cup sliced apples
- 2 cups pear slices
- 1 ½ cup fresh cranberries
- 1 cup pineapple chunks (save the juice)
- ½ stick melted butter or 4 Tablespoons melted vegan butter
- ⅓ cup coconut palm sugar (unrefined) or brown sugar
- 1 Tablespoon maple syrup, agave, or honey
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon (extra for topping)
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
- ⅓ cup chopped raw walnuts or pecans
- Optional – 2 teaspoons melted coconut oil or butter to coat walnuts
- extra cinnamon for nuts or serving
Instructions
Updated 12/1/2017
- Preheat oven to 300 F.
- In a large bowl, toss fruit with 1-2 teaspoons lemon juice. Set aside.
- In another large bowl, combine melted butter, coconut sugar, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg and pineapple juice.
- Add butter mixture to the fruit and gently combine.
- Pour fruit evenly into a 9×12 baking dish. (OPTIONAL – Toss the nuts in 2 teaspoons melted coconut oil and pinch of cinnamon in the empty fruit bowl. Sprinkle the nuts on top of the fruit.)
- Bake uncovered for 1 hour.
- Sprinkle baked fruit with cinnamon before serving, if desired.
Notes
Slow Cooker Option – Follow the directions above, placing the ingredients in a slow cooker instead of a baking dish, and let them cook on LOW for 4 hours.
Meal Prep – Prep this dish the night before and bake the day of.
- Option 1: You can mix everything, place in casserole dish, place in fridge, then bake the next morning.
- Option 2: The fruit is is more bright and crispy if youmix the fruit in lemon, place in a large dish, cover. Then mix the melted butter, sugar, spices in another bowl. Place that in fridge too. In the morning, reheat the butter/sugar mix and pour it over the fruit. Then bake.
- Option 3:Bake everything the night before and then simply reheat for 20 minutes at 300F before serving.
Baking Tip -To save on time, use canned pineapple and pears in water or juice. Drain pears and pineapple before adding to recipe, saving pineapple juice.
- Prep Time: 10 min
- Cook Time: 1 hr
- Category: breakfast/dessert/brunch
- Method: baking
- Cuisine: breakfast/dessert/brunch
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 273
- Sugar: 27.6 g
- Sodium: 6.4 mg
- Fat: 14.7 g
- Saturated Fat: 6.2 g
- Carbohydrates: 36.7 g
- Fiber: 5.2 g
- Protein: 2 g
- Cholesterol: 24.3 mg
The great thing about this type of breakfastbake is that it can be used for so much more than just Holidays. It’s great with yogurt for a post workout mealbecause hello…. theperfectbalance naturalcarbohydrates, glycogen, and protein from the yogurt! Can you just imagine how good this taste after a run in the cold? SO GOOD!
Hot fruit bakes are great for potluck parties, brunch, New Year’s, or Easter.
Okay, I’m getting way ahead of myself, but you get my point here. It’s a keeper! Plus it’s naturally gluten free and paleo(ish). Or you can make it vegan by using melted vegan butter! I will admit, I tried it both ways, and I although I tendtobe a real butter kind of girl, the veganoption wassuperbuttery tasting as well!
I had my family taste to see what that thought. And it’s a good thing because they all said, “This tastes like mom’s spicedhot fruit bake!” Little did they know I made it with unrefined sugar. GASP! Should I tell them? Nah.
Let’s just breathe in the aroma that is CHRISTMAS and call it a day!
Favorite HolidaySmell? What do you make on Christmas morning?
Cheers!
