One thing I learned reading up on early food is that wheat isn't so easy to grow in northern Europe, and especially in the British Isles. Oats and barley were the major cereal crops. Yes, there was wheat, and as far as re-enacting upper class people go, it's probably accurate to have it. But I got interested in oatcakes.
I assume Ye Olde Peasant Oatcake would be a thick oat porridge, baked or fried. Not very exciting. I may make it sometime, just to see, but I was actually hungry today and a fried oatcake sounded like something that wouldn't be too terribly hard to do. I liked this recipe for the author's attempts to figure out what a traditional oatcake would be like, working back from several old cookbooks. I ended up using this one, though, as my jumping-off point, modified by what I had in the house and my unwillingness to fire up the oven for two lousy oatcakes. I did use rolled oats, because I figured they'd fry easier than steel-cut, but steel-cut would be better from an authenticity standpoint.
- 3/4 c. rolled oats (would like to try steel-cut)
- 1/2 c. all-purpose wheat flour (would like to try oat flour)
- ~1 Tb or 4 tsp brown sugar (about 1/3 of a 1/4 c. measure) (not early period but sounded tasty)
- Dash salt
- Pinch baking powder (totally not period)
- Cinnamon to taste (also not period but sounded tasty)
- 1/4 stick salted butter, cold, diced
- Enough cream to moisten to dough (water would probably be more appropriate)
- Butter for frying
I mixed all the dry ingredients, then squooshed in the butter. When it was crumbly, I added cream until it stuck together in a dough. (I had cream left over from the SENEA dinner and I've been trying to use it up.) I separated the dough into two halves, rolled each into a ball, and flattened to about 1/4" thick. I heated the butter in a small frying pan until water sizzled, then fried the cakes, about 5 min on the first side and 4 min on the second.
The first cake was still a bit doughy in the middle, so I flattened the other one to about 1/8", which helped.
They were a little salty, I think from the salted butter I used to fry. (I didn't have unsalted around.) But none of this prevented me from eating the first one and part of the second. Pretty good warm; we'll see how they are cold. I'm sure all the fat helped.
Reducing the fat content and the sugar would make these blander but more healthful. Eaten with something else, they might make a good cracker-ish sort of thing.
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