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Oatmeal Bread
(May be completed in Five Hours) 1 Cupful Boiling Water 1 Cupful Milk ¼ Cupful Molasses 2 Cupfuls Rolled Oats 1½ Teaspoonfuls Salt 1 Tablespoonful Snowdrift 1 Compressed Yeast Cake 1/2 Cupful Tepid Water or Milk 5 Cupfuls Bread Flour Put the rolled oats, salt and Snowdrift in a bowl and pour over the milk and water, which should be combined and brought to boiling-point. Cover and let stand an hour. Then add the molasses and the yeast, dissolved in the tepid water. Beat in the flour, cover, and let rise until doubled in bulk. Beat again and transfer to two medium-sized bread pans, which have been rubbed with Snowdrift. Cover and when nearly doubled in bulk, bake for fifty minutes in an oven at 375 degrees F., for the first two-thirds of the time, then reduce to 350 degrees F., (a moderate oven) to finish drying out the bread. When done, rub over with Snowdrift to keep the crust soft.
A straightforward oatmeal-molasses loaf from a shortening manufacturer's promotional book, with the unusual courtesy of actual oven temperatures. A few of the printed quantities have suffered in transcription.
- SnowdriftA brand of hydrogenated cottonseed-oil shortening sold by the Southern Cotton Oil Company. Any solid vegetable shortening, or butter, works in the same amount — a single tablespoon in five cups of flour is there for softness, not structure.
- The molasses measure"14 Cupful Molasses" is a mangled 1/4 cupful. Use unsulphured molasses; blackstrap is more bitter and may slow the yeast.
- The saltThe printed page gives 1½ teaspoonfuls of salt, as our text now reads. That is the right proportion for five cupfuls of flour; less would leave the loaf tasting flat.
- Compressed yeast cakeAbout 0.6 oz of fresh cake yeast, equivalent to one packet — 2 1/4 teaspoons — of active dry yeast. Dissolve it in the half cup of tepid liquid as directed; tepid means roughly 100–110F, and liquid much hotter than that (above about 120F) will damage or kill it.
- Scalding the oatsThe hinge of the recipe. Boiling liquid poured over the oats and left a full hour gelatinizes the starch, which is what gives this bread its moisture and keeps it from going dry on the second day. Do not shorten it, and do not add the yeast until the mixture has cooled to lukewarm.
- Rolled oatsOld-fashioned rolled oats, not instant or steel-cut. Quick oats will work but give a softer, less distinct crumb.
- "Beat in the flour"This is a beaten batter-dough rather than a kneaded one — stiff, sticky, and worked with a spoon or a mixer paddle. Expect a dense, tight crumb rather than an airy one.
- Oven and timing375F for the first two-thirds of the fifty minutes, about 33 minutes, then 350F for the remaining 17 or so. Fifty minutes total suits two loaf pans of ordinary size; the loaves are done at an internal temperature of about 195-200F.
- YieldTwo medium loaves. The five-hour estimate in the heading includes the hour of soaking and two rises, which is realistic in a warm kitchen.
A New Snowdrift Cook Book belongs to a whole genre of early twentieth-century American cookery writing: the manufacturer's recipe pamphlet, given away free to persuade households that a new industrial fat could do everything lard and butter did. Snowdrift was hydrogenated cottonseed oil, a by-product of the Southern cotton crop turned into a kitchen staple, and its name appears in this recipe three times for a total of perhaps two tablespoons — the point being repetition rather than quantity. The bread itself is much older than the shortening: oatmeal and molasses loaves are a New England fixture, and their origins are often traced to the relative cheapness of oats and imported West Indian molasses, though that account is traditional rather than documented. Scalding the oats to soften them is the traditional step, and the molasses does double duty as sweetener and colouring. What marks this version as modern for its day is the specified oven temperature; thermostatic gas and electric ranges were spreading through American kitchens in the 1910s and 1920s, and cookbook writers had only recently been able to write "375 degrees F." instead of trusting a cook's hand in the oven.