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Bread

Oatmeal Bread

A yeast bread made with rolled oats, molasses, and bread flour, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Oatmeal Bread

Why it works: Oats and bread work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 258 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Oatmeal Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 375°F (190°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the sponge

  1. Pour boiling water over the rolled oats and let sit in a covered dish until lukewarm.

  2. Add the molasses and the yeast cake softened in a little warm water.

  3. Stir in 1½ cups of bread flour until spongy.

Shape and bake

  1. Add the salt and enough flour to form a stiff dough.

  2. Let the dough rise until doubled in size.

  3. Cut down the dough and transfer it to oiled tins.

  4. Let it rise again, then bake for about 45 minutes at 375°F (190°C).

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. Oats + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Bread + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oats + molassestop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Bread and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,383 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 soft, tender crumb while soaking up moisture from the boiling water.
Yeast cake
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become airy.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth of flavor, and helps the crust brown during baking.
Bread flour
Its gluten forms the network that traps gas and gives the loaf its structure.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until doubled. Rising builds the gas and gluten structure that gives the loaf its lift and open crumb. Under-proofed dough stays dense, while over-proofed dough may collapse in the oven.

“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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