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Quaker Oats Bread

A yeast bread made with Quaker oats, butter, water, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Quaker Oats Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the base

  1. Combine oats, salt, sugar, and butter in a mixing bowl.

  2. Add 2 cups of boiling water and let stand until lukewarm.

  3. Add the remaining 2 cups of hot water.

  4. Add the yeast cake.

Make and rise the dough

  1. Add flour, one cup at a time, beating constantly.

  2. Dredge a board with some of the remaining flour.

  3. Knead in the last 2 cups of flour if necessary.

  4. Knead the dough until well blended and elastic.

  5. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk.

  6. Cut down the dough and knead slightly without removing it from the bowl.

  7. Let rise again until doubled in bulk.

Shape and bake

  1. Turn the dough onto a floured board and knead slightly.

  2. Shape into loaves, each weighing one pound.

  3. Set to rise until light.

  4. Bake for one hour.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Oats + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the loaves structure and chew.
Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become light.
Rolled oats
Absorb water and add moisture and a tender, soft crumb.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Cooling the liquid before adding the yeast. Yeast is a living culture that dies in very hot liquid, so the mixture must cool to lukewarm before the yeast cake goes in. Kneading then develops the gluten that traps the rising gas.

“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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