JOANNA'S FOOD: family cooking, from scratch, every day


Thursday, October 04, 2007

Quick oat loaf

I've been making a lot of soda bread recently, in fact I can't remember when I last bought a loaf of bread - if there's no bread in the house, I can have one on the table in less than an hour. Easier than a trip to the shops. But I can't help feeling that making bread without using yeast is cheating.

So I'm making a starter (because the last one died of neglect), and I'm trying this lazy loaf ... it's proving in the oven as I write this.

Quick oat loaf

200g rolled oats
325g spelt flour
2 tsp dried yeast (see update on this)
1 tsp Maldon salt
250 ml skimmed milk
250 ml water

Mix the dry ingredients, add the liquids. Stir to a porridge. Leave to soak for 20 minutes to soften the oats (don't bother if you're in a hurry).










Dollop into a large loaf tin and put it into your cold oven. Switch it on to 110C. After 45 minutes, turn it up to 180C and cook for an hour.











The method comes from Nigella Express, but I've changed the ingredients around so that it's bread, rather than a tea loaf. The oats and spelt make it a healthy and tasty alternative to a wheat loaf.

5 comments:

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

Joanna, It's not cheating! It's just different! I love regular, plain soda bread.

Katie Zeller said...

Yeah, it kind of feels like cheating...but I make a lot of soda bread, too! Less than an hour from thought to table is what I like!

AllstarTRAINER said...

Can you tell me what Rolled oats are? Could I use porridge oats?

Joanna said...

Yes, rolled oats are the flattened out grains that you typically buy for porridge, or find in muesli. They are the oats generally on sale in supermarkets.

Otherwise, you buy wholegrain pinhead oats, but they wouldn't work here, and take all night to cook in porridge; or you buy medium oats which are a slightly milled version of pinhead oats, so cook quicker, also no good here. These are harder to find, unless you live in Scotland

Sorry to confuse you!
Joanna

AllstarTRAINER said...

Thanks for the information. looks like I'm baking tonight so, wish me luck, it will be my second attempt ever. First attempt was under supervision of "Mammy" so it hardly counts!