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Bread

Oatmeal Bread

A yeast‑leavened bread made with rolled oats, molasses, brown sugar, lard, and white flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Oatmeal Bread

Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Oatmeal Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the soaker

  1. In a large bowl, combine rolled oats, salt, lard, molasses, and brown sugar.

  2. Pour the remaining 2 cups of boiling water over the mixture and let it cool.

Make the dough

  1. Mix the yeast with 1 cup of boiling water.

  2. Once cooled, add the yeast mixture and stir in enough white flour to form a stiff dough.

  3. Let the dough rise until doubled in size, similar to white bread.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Oats + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oats + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rolled oats
Provide the hearty body and chewy, tender crumb characteristic of oatmeal bread.
White flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the stiff dough structure and lets it rise.
Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes the loaf rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and helps the crust brown.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and feeds the yeast while promoting browning.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens texture.

The step that matters

Let the soaker cool before adding yeast. The oats and boiling water must cool enough that the yeast is not killed by heat. Adding yeast to very hot liquid can destroy it, so the dough may fail to rise.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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