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Bread

Rolled Oats Bread

A yeast bread made with rolled oats, milk, molasses, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Rolled Oats 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 dough

  1. Pour scalded milk over rolled oats, molasses, salt, and butter.

  2. Dissolve the yeast cake in lukewarm water.

  3. When cool, add the yeast and enough flour to make a dough that drops from the spoon.

Rise and shape

  1. Let the dough rise until doubled in size, then punch down and let rise again.

  2. Divide the dough into small pans and let rise slowly until doubled in size.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Oats + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,119 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Rolled oats
Add body and a hearty, chewy texture to the crumb.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, and its sugars help the crust brown.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep flavor, and helps browning.
Yeast cake
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise.
Flour
Provides gluten and starch that form the structure of the loaf.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer crumb.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled in size. Yeast needs time to produce gas and stretch the gluten network. Underproofed dough bakes dense, while overproofed dough may collapse. Waiting for the dough to double is the main check on the 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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