Keyword 20th Century Baking, Bannocks, Bread, Oatcakes, Oatmeal, Oats
Prep Time 30 minutesminutes
Cook Time 30 minutesminutes
Cooling Time 15 minutesminutes
Total Time 1 hourhour15 minutesminutes
Servings 9bannocks
Calories 110kcal
Equipment
half sheet baking pan
Silpat silicone mat or parchment paper
rolling pin
2½-inch round cookie cutter
Ingredients
1cupmedium oatmeal (and by this she means oat flour)plus extra for dusting (7 oz, 200g)
¼cupsteel cut oatspinhead oatmeal (1½ oz, 50g)
¼cuprolled oatsporridge oats, see Recipe Notes (¾ oz, 25g)
¼tspkosher salt
¼tspbrown sugar
½tspbaking powdersee Recipe Notes
5Tbspbuttercubed, see Recipe Notes (2½ oz, 75g)
?cupwater (¼ cup + 1 Tbsp)boiling (2½ oz, 75g)
Instructions
Heat the oven to 400°F (200°C, gas mark six). Mix together the oatmeals and oats and spread out on a half sheet baking pan lined with a Silpat silicone mat or parchment paper.
Bake for about 15 minutes, shaking the tray occasionally, until they start to smell toasted. (I liked the idea of toasting the flours before baking to amp up the flavor, but I didn’t realize at the time the effect it would have on the brittleness of the final product.)
Pour into a mixing bowl and allow to cool slightly, then whisk in the salt and sugar. Stir the butter into the boiling water until melted, then stir this into the oats to make a sticky mixture. If it seems too wet to hold together, add a little more of the medium oatmeal, but it should be quite damp. (The dough was damp, but was it damp enough? I really didn't know then, but probably not.)
Dust a work surface with medium oatmeal and put the mixture on there. Pack together well and flatten or roll out with a well-dusted pin until it is about ¼-inch thick.
Cut out rounds of the size of your choice, then use a spatula to carefully lift each one on to the tray, still in the cutter as they will be fragile. Space them out well and re-roll any scraps until all the mixture is used up. (I rolled these as indicated and used a 2½-inch round cookie cutter, and boy, were they fragile…I couldn’t even get them to the tray without crumbling! My theory is that toasting the oat flour dries it out, so it’s really going to absorb the water added.)
Bake for 20 minutes, then very carefully turn them over and bake for 10 more minutes until they feel hard and dry on both sides. (My baking time wasn’t even close to that 20 minutes...it was more like 10 minutes on the first side and 5 minutes on the second. Turning them also proved to be disastrous. I did like that my kitchen smelled nutty as they were baking, though.)
Gently transfer to a wire rack to cool, then store in an airtight tin. (Gently transfer, indeed...only 2 made it without breaking up.)
Notes
I ran out of rolled oats, but I figured that my makeshift oat flour was coarse enough to get the intended texture.The baking powder was my addition as many recipes called for it and I wanted to see if it made any difference. It didn’t.There was way more butter than the previous recipe, but I reasoned it was because we weren’t using milk.Did you make this recipe? Please share your pictures with the world on your social media…tag @outlandercast (on Instagram and Twitter) and use the hashtag #howtheymadeitoutlander. I can’t wait to see your creations!