Oatcakes
Hannah asked weeks ago for my oatcake recipe and I’m still flapdoodling around and not producing it. I promised fewer weeks ago that if I hadn’t posted it by the time they came over here I’d let her photocopy the salient pages from the cookbooks. And Hannah and her bloggers* are coming back tomorrow** for their final pass through Hampshire.***
But photocopied cookbook pages won’t give her my recipe. We’ve been here before. This is of course often the case with favourite recipes–you pull one out one day to check something, let your eyes really focus on it for the first time in years, and think, good grief, that’s barely relevant any more. But some foods are more prone to needing creative handling than others, and oatcakes are another of these texture things–even more so than, say, how-wet-is-your-pumpkin for pumpkin tea bread–because you have to knead this dough. If you want to try making these, you’d maybe better brace yourself for the possibility that it’ll take you a few attempts before you find your way to compose the perfect oatcake. Unlike your first attempts at yeast bread, though, your oatcakes should, barring national emergency, be perfectly edible.
The crucial cookbook is John Thorne’s SIMPLE COOKING.† This is a lovely book, a book about food with recipes rather than a cookbook. He’s nothing at all like Elizabeth David, who is the usual comparison, but he is a food writer. Here’s a favourite bit:
‘Just as there are dog lovers and cat lovers, there are bread and pastry makers. These things respond so differently to even loving hands that they pull at opposite temperaments entirely. Doggy bread dough exults in pummelling, contact, and warmth, and does its tricks almost unbidden, so eager to share affection. Pie dough, conversely, catlike, wants love, too, but from a coolly respectful hand and in short, sweet doses; only if you get it to its liking will it deign respond. Pie makers think bread work too easy; bread makers just hate pie dough. . . . ‘
Well I make very good pastry (sez she) but I’m a better bread maker. Oatcakes are somewhere between the two. I do it like this, as considerably devolved from Thorne’s:
1 c fine oatmeal. It’s common enough over here; I think you can now buy this generally in the States too. I used to buy mine at a health food shop. (Still do for that matter.) If you can’t get fine oatmeal, in other words oatmeal that looks like flour, run it through your food processor till it does. Look like flour. I suspect this is one of those things that you’d better use short pulses for.
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt. You want your oatcakes fairly salty, so I use salt even with salted butter. But you may want less or more.
Make a well in your oatmeal and blob 2-3 T butter there. Then pour up to about half a cup boiling water over and mix. I start with ¼ c–pouring with my right hand and squishing it together with my left–don’t burn yourself, believe me, it’s easy to do–and keep dribbling till it starts to act like it’s coming together. Then knead with both hands. I keep the rest of the ½ cup water–if there’s any left–because I may still use it if after I’ve been kneading a while it seems dry. This is the pastry-like bit: you only add as much liquid as you need to make it hold together; also, pastry-like, you don’t knead and knead and knead, as you do with yeast dough††, you knead just till it seems to be all the same thing all the way through–and then just a little bit more. This is where experience is what you have to acquire. If you knead too little the oatcakes will be crumbly; if you knead too much (like overhandling pastry) they’ll be tough. But it’s not hard: you just have to do it, and find out for yourself.
Sometimes you may need more than ½ c water too. Don’t panic. The worst that happens is that your oatcakes are a little soft, or that you end up kneading in more flour. Purists flour their hands with more oatmeal; it’s kind of gritty, though, and it doesn’t absorb the way wheat flour does–also you’re just used to wheat flour, you know how it handles and what to look for, unless you’re a gluten-free girl in which case you should probably be telling me how to make oatcakes. Anyway, I usually flour my hands and the countertop with flour flour, not oatmeal.††† Knead until it’s a homogenous half-sticky lump. The definition of half sticky is also something you learn with experience: but you will have to keep flouring (or oatmealing) your hands and the countertop. Kneading doesn’t take long. It’s not springy like bread dough, though–no yeast, no gluten, duh–and it’ll be disconcerting if you don’t keep telling yourself this is oatmeal. Again, once you’re used to it, you’ll recognise when it’s ready.
Which is not to say that the rolling out process cannot be a trifle fraught. I’ve been making piecrust for forty years and I’m just resigned to the rolling out process being a trifle fraught. I’ve streamlined the whole beautiful-regular-edges thing though and have deliberately gone for raggedy homespun edges in my oatcakes. According to Thorne you’re supposed to roll it out in a circle or circles and cut it into wedges, like shortbread; I think these are unnecessarily hard to handle, since you want to roll it pretty thin. Not to strudel dough thickness (oatmeal won’t do that anyway) but thin. The other classic oatcake shape is round: so you roll it out and use your biscuit-cutter on it. I can’t be bothered with this either. All that scraps and rerolling? Forget it. I roll it out into a rough rectangle and whack it into (rough) squares, leaving the slightly raggedy edges to be part of the presentation and–as are edges in all baked things–more desirable. I also pat it with my hands a bit, so the surface is slightly uneven too, to go with the rustic edges.
You can cook these on a griddle, but again, I can’t be bothered: I slide ‘em onto a cookie sheet. (Use a spatula.) You shouldn’t have to butter your cookie sheet, but I’m paranoid, and I put ‘em on parchment paper. 350 F for about 15-20 minutes, but you can experiment with slightly higher for slightly shorter. They should have turned a few delicate shades darker, and the raggedy edges a few shades darker than that but they should in no way go very dark or burn.
Remember, again, that these are made of oatmeal. The texture is just not like flour. There’s always that slightly crumbly, slightly gritty quality. Us aficionados like this. And they never get quite crisp the way flour does; there’s always a slight softness, one might almost say gentleness‡, about them. But when you break one in half, it should break, not crumble.
If you get into the swing of these, then do experiment with herbs: I’m a rosemary nut, myself, and have never got beyond rosemary oatcakes: a small palmful of fresh, chopped, which is the best, or I think about a half teaspoon of dry–chop these too, or better yet, grind them in a mortar for a bit.
And I think I’ll save my back-up oatcake cookbook for another day.
* Including Cormac. Mwa ha ha ha ha ha.
** Yaaaaay.
*** And leaving Sunday morning. Boooo.
† Copyright 1987. Wait a minute. How did I make oatcakes before that? I’ve been making oatcakes since I came back from England for the first time as a grown-up, which would have been about 1980. Hmm. Anyway:
Pardon the books on dermatology. At least the one on hunter ponies is the right name. And my old trade paper edition of SIMPLE COOKING has a much nicer cover.
Thorne used to run a food newsletter, if you can even imagine such a thing, back in the days when you had to do this by street mail. Yes, the long ago days when telephones were attached to the wall, TVs were big square things and we drove horses and buggies. Now he has a web site like a normal person.
†† Although some of that is quantity. There’s a lot more dough in a loaf of bread to bash together into a consistent consistency. But kneading bread dough is overdone in the how-to books too. But that’s a discussion for another day.
††† Note that you can make a very nice oat cracker with about half fine oatmeal and half wholemeal/wholewheat or spelt flour.
‡ Given the realities of winter in the Scottish Highlands, I’m sure they could use some gentleness in one of their staples.
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Yay. Excitement. Happy good things.
BUT DID YOU GET THE EMAIL I SENT WITH THE PHOTO[s] AS PER YOUR REQUEST???
… not to bug you or anything. I know that you are busy, and have plenty of other stuff to take care of before answering an email… but I just want to be sure it actually went through and that you GOT it, even if you haven’t had time to OPEN it yet. You know? After all, you did ask for the pictures. I’m not just randomly bothering you with an email.
Just clarifying/inquiring.
Yay again and congratulations for posting the beautiful Bonica photo! Complete with delicate butterfly – having alighted on petal, it poses for a picture so we can all admire it, I suppose… the vanity of butterflies these days! :)
Hugs and so on.
–Julia
Yes! Yes! yes! I’ve already answered this! –But no, I haven’t looked at the photos yet, although that’s aprtly because my new laptop has Curious Saving Techniques which I haven’t entirely plumbed yet. Like, where did they GO?
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Oh.
You answered?
Here?
In that comment thread?
Really?
Then I apologize for asking again. I didn’t see that you had responded– and believe me, I checked.
Where they went? There should be some sort of temporary file thing, but I don’t know how to get to it. If you need me to resend, just ask. But I’m sure that they are somewhere, lurking, hidden, in the depths of computer-obscurity-ness.
Well, I’m glad that you got it.
Must dash, but had to just respond first!
Goodnight!
–Julia
:)
Lovely oatcake! We never had oatcake in my house as a kid, but my best friend had nairns oatcakes and I got hooked. And I’ve convinced my daughter also. We both love ginger, but rosemary will be tried :)
In response to your routine which includes apparently several sessions of hellhound hair gathering (naah, they’re short haired!)
http://www.thenewyorkerstore.com/product_details.asp?mscssid=A6SG456P7K6L9LEQBEXU72ST7VT5DSND&sitetype=1&did=4&sid=30614&pid=&keyword=dog§ion=prints&title=Dogs&whichpage=307&sortBy=popular – now this is not true in my case as I adore standard poodles…
I think I’ll have to try this one. Thanks!
Does this mean I’m particularly weird for liking both bread and pastry? It’s ordinary cakes that phase me. They’re my mother’s specialty. When we were growing up we would have homemade cake for breakfast. Every day. (Trying to keep these comments short).
I both like and make all three. :)
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So, are oat cakes kind of like crackers? (very crisp?) Didn’t King Somebodyorother burn oatcakes a thousand years ago?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A289451
How on earth did that story hang around for more than a day, let alone 1000 years?
I found this recipe for oat cakes:
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usrecipes/oatcakes/index.html
(it has pictures!)
I’ve never thought of Alfred’s as oatcake cakes, but they could be. And this is a highly IMPURE recipe being HALF WHEAT FLOUR.
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Simple Cooking is the house-warming present I’ve been waiting to grab me for my daughter’s new abode. I’m going to read it first, thanks to your quote. I’m not much of a cook,( my daughter is) but I enjoy descriptions.
Thank you!
I hope the ME has gone away again.
Excellent! :)
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Hmm…. This looks rather fabulous, partly because I like oatmeal and partly because I think if I get the ingredients down pat I stand a good chance of producing something decent–I’ve got a reasonably good touch with non-yeasty baked goods. It’s just a matter of setting a time to try it out…
Things have reached a peak of turmoil at the museum (bad boss had his first walkthrough on the not-yet-finished new exhibit yesterday, and he had plenty of Very Special Ideas which we are now trying to deal with; and it’s T minus 6 days and counting, by the bye) so if I disappear from commentville for a few days, don’t worry–I PROBABLY have not run myself over with the Batmobile. Or even thrown myself beneath its overly large wheels. Probably. We shall see… :)
Oh dear–good luck. Maybe you should make oatcakes to focus and destress!! –Maybe you need oatcakes as mortar for the exhibit–
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Not a half bad idea. Tomorrow I’m buying our graphics crew some cupcakes from the fancy gourmet cupcake store… Maybe oatcakes to follow.
In the meantime, if anyone is curious to see how this sort of thing happens, my continually evolving photoset for the exhibit is here. No photos of the Batmobile in situ as yet, we’re keeping it covered until construction’s finished–less to clean.
Come on, you wretched woman, you’re just torturing us. WE WANT THE BATMOBILE. WE WANT IT *NOW*. I love it that your curator is handling comic books in gloves. Of course! They’re MUSEUM EXHIBITS! And I like the jellyfish.
Gah! Here, take it!! :)
Actually that’s not the one we’re getting. We’ve got the one from the newest films, the one that looks like a friggin’ tank. Patience, my friend, patience. All will be revealed…. in time.
And in the meantime, check THIS out! :) Today I went in to help mount graphics (like that one,) which is probably what I’ll be doing Monday as well. And since I won’t be adding photos tomorrow, I also threw in some pics of the museum itself for your viewing pleasure…
Yaaay, Batmobile!! :)
I was once asked to write a review of a superhero graphic novel and I went off on a rant about all the skintight spandex all the superheroes wear, and their incredibly over muscled bodies AND PERFECTLY FLAT CROTCHES. For some reason I was never asked to write another review. . . .
Very nice. And I couldn’t help but be excited by the Chihuly glass (I’m guessing that’s who did it, although I know some of his apprentices make very similar stuff), since he’s from Tacoma. Good luck with opening and your boss.
Hey, thanks muchly Pahis! Yeah, that’s our Chihuly; his tallest to date, I’m told, it’s 40′ high. Underneath is a suspended ceiling with various glass pieces in it, and our very bottom floor has a rotating bench where you can sit and look up at the glass; it’s like being inside a kaleidescope.
Robin, the perfectly flat crotch can be explained by the fact that all superheroes by necessity wear Hero Cups ™ to protect their nether regions; these are ingeniously constructed using space-age technology in such a way as to store the bits in question in another dimension entirely, for added safety.
ROTFL!!!!!!! Ow, ow, ow, OW!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have been making pie crust for more than forty years and I agree that rolling it out is fraught, and I never get a beautiful even edge etc. It’s probably a myth that such things are possible.
I discovered John Thorne’s books some years ago after a reference in one of Laurie Colwin’s recipes (for butternut squash tian–it may be in Simple Cooking) . If you haven’t ever come across her cookbooks (Home Cooking and More Home Cooking) you would probably like them–they are essays with recipes, from a column she wrote for Gourmet. One has to approve of a person who cares deeply about gingerbread.
YES! We be of one blood! I love Laurie Colwin’s cookbooks (and her fiction ain’t shabby either)! I would have got round to her one day. . . . Well, I probably still will. :) She died **waaay** too young.
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She did die too young. One obit I read said it was like losing a sister, and I could relate to that. There are comments in her essays that could come from me. And no, nothing shabby about the fiction either. Damn cancer anyway.
Indeed. She had that immediate-next-door-neighbour quality. It’s hard to do that in print.
This is a great recipe. I can’t wait to try it out. I actually use a very similar recipe (achieving the same balance of mixing by hand but not mixing too much) to make scones, using flour instead of oatmeal and milk in addition to water.
I’ve been meaning to post for a while to say that I LOVE the new blog, LOVE the photos and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the guest bloggers.
–Julie
Oh good. :)
Yes, it’s not unlike mixing scones, although the texture is a lot different, the philosophy is very similar.
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Thanks ever so for the oakcake recipe! I have one, but it seems to be more a recipe for dried, warped cardboard than oakcakes. Or maybe it was my technique. I’m exited to try yours.
Please let me know if it works. I’m always worried (well, I’m always worried, full stop) about these things that take JUDGEMENT. If it does NOT work, tell me what you can of WHY so I can try to figure out what I didn’t tell you.
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How much is 3T of butter in proper measurements???? I love oatcakes; Sainsbury’s are really nice, and Tesco’s Finest run a good 2nd. Must try making my own.
Figures re the pastry/bread thing; I’m a dog person and make better bread – my daughter is a cat person and makes better pastry. Haven’t had home-made pastry since she left home!
1 T (tablespoon, although you probably already knew that) is 15 mL. When I was using butter I always just transfered mL directly to grams, so for this recipe would call for 45 g. of butter. I often worried that I was way off (since I know that mL and g are NOT the same except for, oh, water), but I made a wide variety of recipes using this (including some picky pastry recipes calling for extremely large amounts of butter [sometimes I figured I could save myself some time by just eating the butter straight out of the package], as well as others needing only a little bit), and it always worked. (I hope I got the right measurements that you were looking for.)
If you want to convert other things, here’s what you need to know:
1 tsp (teaspoon)= 5 mL
1 T (tablespoon)= 15 mL (or 3 teaspoons)
1 cup= 240 mL (some places will tell you 250, but others say 240, which I find much happier because it eases up the division so much)
(the rest you could figure out, but I’ll put it here so you don’t have to worry about it)
1/2 cup= 120 mL
1/3 cup= 80 mL
1/4 cup= 4 T= 60 mL
1/8 cup= 2 T= 6 tsp= 30 mL (when doubling, tripling, etc. a recipe I often found it helpful to go from T to divisions of cups since I find it much easier to remember, say, 1/4 cup than 4 T)
Also, this means that 4 cups are approximately equal to 1 liter (if you go by some sources, they are exactly one liter, but as I mentioned I tend not to follow those sources). I generally go for the four cups and then slosh in some more of whatever it was for good measure.
When using tsp or T I often just use a small spoon (the kind often used in Europe for dessert) for a tsp and a larger soup spoon for the T. This doesn’t work if you need precision, of course, but it’s close enough most of the time.
I hope that was helpful. I’ve also found the following site to be helpful: http://www.onlineconversion.com/ You can use just about any sort of measurement (not just cooking, but others as well) and convert it to something else by typing in the number; it also tells you what to multiply/divide by so you can do it yourself if you want. There are other sites too, but I find this one to be nice and thorough..
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I’ve also found the following site to be helpful: http://www.onlineconversion.com/
******** Brilliant! Thank you!
Oatcake Report
I tried your recipe, and here’s what I will do different next time:
I will make more than 1 cup of oatmeal into oatflour to begin with. I realize your recipe said ‘use more oatflour for . . .’ the board and hands, and in case you put in too much water, but I don’t pay attention.
I will use butter that’s been sitting out for awhile instead of taking it straight from the ‘fridge, and I will cut it up into, say 1/4″ cubes instead of putting a 3T-sized lump in. It’ll probably melt faster that way.
I’ll let the cakes cool before trying to eat them. Probably more kneading of the dough will be good, too. They were very yummy but they fell apart.
It’s the falling apart that’s the trickiest. Yes, it’s kneading and texture. You WILL learn. :)
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