There’s something extremely satisfying about having a warm breakfast ready and waiting for you when you wake up. On days when I have to go into the office, using the slow cooker the night before to make the next day’s breakfast (or lunch, which I pop into a thermos to take along) is also a great way to save a bit of food prep time.
The prep for this dish depends a little bit on your slow cooker. I have a medium-sized slow cooker, and when making porridge for one, I use a nifty trick to cook the apples at the same time. I bought a smaller oven-proof dish with a 600-ml capacity that slots inside my standard slow cooker insert. Any dish with the right dimensions will do, as long as there are a few centimetres of space around the perimeter. That’s just enough room for me to distribute the four pieces of a cored, quartered apple around the sides. Somehow, this way, they turn into pillowy apple puffs that go perfectly on top of the cooked porridge.
For bigger batches you can either cook the apples separately in the morning, although that does defeat the purpose of having it ready in one go, or you could chop them up and throw them into the oat mix to cook for the night as well. Bear in mind, they won’t be as flavourful that way, though.