Home › Village Receipts › Oatmeal Bread (MRS D M PosT)
Oatmeal Bread (MRS D M PosT)
MRS. D. M. PosT.
One cup of rolled oats, one tablespoon of lard and one-half cup of molasses; pour over this two cups of boiling water and let stand until lukewarm. Dissolve one-half yeast cake in one-half cup lukewarm water. Add this and a little salt, then stir in flour enough to knead in the morning.
— Mrs. Ira B. Kerr
A slack overnight sponge in the old style: the oats are scalded at night, a small amount of yeast is added, and the flour goes in at breakfast. The written instructions stop before the shaping and baking, so those numbers are supplied below.
- Wait for lukewarmThe hinge of the recipe. Two cups of boiling water on a cup of oats holds heat far longer than it looks; yeast stirred into a hot mash will be damaged, and hotter still killed outright. Lukewarm means comfortably warm to the finger, not hot. Test with a finger, not a clock.
- Half a yeast cakeCompressed cakes varied in size; taking one at the familiar 0.6 oz, half a cake works out at roughly a teaspoon of modern active dry or instant yeast. The small amount suits a long, cool overnight rise.
- Flour enoughThe recipe leaves the quantity open, and with roughly three cups of liquid the dough will take a good deal of flour, worked in over the two stages. Add the last of it slowly; oatmeal doughs feel wetter than they are and stiffen as the oats absorb.
- Rolled oatsOld-fashioned rolled oats, not instant or steel-cut. Instant oats break down to paste in boiling water; steel-cut will stay noticeably chewy.
- LardOne tablespoon is for softness and keeping quality rather than flavour. Butter or a neutral oil substitutes directly.
- Salt"A little salt" reads as light by modern standards; 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons suits this quantity of flour, and molasses breads taste flat without it.
- The morning workKnead the flour in, let the dough rise until doubled, shape, and give it a second rise in the pan until it crowns the rim. The overnight sponge counts as the first fermentation only.
- Baking375F for 35 to 45 minutes in a standard loaf pan. Molasses browns fast, so tent with foil if the crust darkens early; the loaf is done near 195F internal.
- YieldA large batch; expect two loaves rather than one. It slices best fully cooled and keeps several days.
Oatmeal bread of this type belongs to the New England habit of stretching wheat flour with a cheaper cooked grain, sweetened with molasses rather than sugar because molasses was a everyday sweetener in the northeastern kitchen well into the twentieth century. Scalding the oats overnight was practical as much as culinary: it softened the grain, and it let a very small quantity of yeast do its work slowly in a cool kitchen while the household slept, so that the dough was ready to knead before breakfast. Compiled cookbooks of contributed receipts preserve exactly this kind of shorthand -- a receipt written by one cook for another who already knew how long to bake a loaf and never needed telling.