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Bread

Soft Oatmeal Bread

A baked bread made from leftover oatmeal, cornmeal, milk, eggs, and dates.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and dates work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Soft Oatmeal Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Stir scalded milk into leftover oatmeal.

  2. When hot, add yellow cornmeal.

  3. Once partly cool, quickly mix in egg yolks.

  4. Gently fold in beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the bottom of a baking pan with chopped dates.

  2. Pour the mixture over the dates and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

  3. Use a fork to break it apart and a spoon to serve.

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.

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. Milk + datestop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + datestop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal
Provides the bulk and body of the bread, with starch that thickens the batter.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter as it sets in the oven.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they trap air that helps the bread rise and become light.
Yellow cornmeal
Adds coarse texture and a mild corn flavor to the crumb.
Scalded milk
Adds moisture and softness, and its proteins help set the crumb.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Beaten egg whites hold air bubbles that give the bread its lift. Stirring or deflating them vigorously knocks out that air, leaving a denser loaf.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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