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Rolled Oats Bread
2 Cups boiling water 1/2 cup molasses 1/2 tablespoon salt 1 tablespoon butter 1/2 yeast cake dissolved in 1/2 cup lukewarm water 1 cup rolled oats 5 cups flour Add boiling water to oats and let stand one hour; add molasses, salt, butter, dissolved yeast cake, and flour; let rise, beat thoroughly, turn into buttered bread pans, let rise again, and bake. To make shaping of biscuits easy, take up mixture by spoonfuls, drop into plate of flour, and have palms of hands well covered with flour before attempting to shape or drop from spoon into buttered muffin tins.
A molasses-sweetened oatmeal loaf of the plain New England type, written when bakers were trusted to know their own oven. Two things are missing from the text and need supplying: the yeast amount in modern terms and the baking temperature.
- Scald the oats first, and waitThe boiling water over the rolled oats is the hinge of the recipe. The full hour softens the flakes and, just as importantly, brings the mixture down to lukewarm so the yeast survives. Test the bowl with a finger before the yeast goes in; lukewarm (around 100-110F) is what you want, and anything much hotter risks the yeast.
- Half a yeast cakeCompressed yeast cakes of this era were commonly in the region of 0.6 oz, though sizes varied and the recipe does not say; on that basis half a cake is roughly 1/4 to 1/3 oz. About 1 teaspoon of active dry or instant yeast, dissolved as directed in the half cup of warm water, is a reasonable substitute.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. Bake at 375F for 40 to 50 minutes, until the loaf sounds hollow and reads 195-200F at the centre.
- Rolled oatsOld-fashioned rolled oats, not quick or instant, and not steel-cut. Quick oats break down further over the hour-long soak and tend towards a pastier, denser crumb.
- "Beat thoroughly"This is a soft dough, closer to a heavy batter than a kneaded bread. After the first rise it is beaten down rather than kneaded, which is why the crumb comes out close and moist rather than open.
- MolassesUse unsulphured dark molasses, not blackstrap, which is bitter and can slow the yeast. It supplies the colour and most of the sweetness; there is no other sugar in the loaf.
- Yield and pansThe quantities fill two standard 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch pans; the recipe's own plural 'bread pans' points the same way. Butter them well: molasses doughs stick.
- Second riseLet the shaped loaves come to just under the rim of the pan, about 45 minutes in a warm kitchen. Oat doughs are heavy and will not recover if allowed to overproof and collapse.
Rolled oats reached American kitchens as a cheap breakfast cereal in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, once roller mills made flaked oats a mass-produced commodity, and cookbooks quickly put the surplus to work in bread. Loaves of this kind -- oats scalded and softened, sweetened with molasses rather than sugar, and stretched with a small amount of yeast -- belong to a long New England habit of extending wheat flour with whatever grain was cheapest, the same logic behind rye-and-Indian and brown bread. The molasses does double duty, sweetening the loaf and keeping it moist for several days, which mattered in a household that baked bread once or twice a week.