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War Bread (a recipe from World War I)
Apr. 28th, 2021 10:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valoiseI'm in the process of digitizing and transcribing a small handwritten cookbook from the early 20th century. If anyone is interested in the project, you can find it on my blog cookingfromthepast.blogspot.com/ This recipe for a bread uses rolled oats in place of some of the flour. There were wheat shortages in the U.S. and in Europe towards the end of the war.
War Bread
6 cups rolled oats, put into
boiling water, let stand a few
minutes, enough white flour to
make stiff batter. 2 cakes of compressed
yeast, dissolved in half glass warm
water, let stand overnight
knead in enough flour in the morning
to make loaves like ordinary bread,
let stand until it raises.
I cut the recipe in half, I simply didn't have a bowl large enough to hold 6 cups of oats plus the water, the flour and the the increase in volume as the dough rises. I added 3 cups of boiling water to 3 cups of oats and let it stand for 30 minutes.
I added 2 cups of water and a teaspoon of yeast that had been dissolved in 1/2 cup warm water. This resulted in a very dry mass so I added an additional cup of warm water and let it stand for 8 hours.
When that first rise was done I added 2 more cups of flour along with a teaspoon of salt. The original recipe doesn't call for salt, but it does generally improve the flavor of bread. This mass was very difficult to knead. I kneaded in an additional cup of flour and kneaded for quite a long time but it never developed the kind of elasticity you expect from a normal bread dough. The results might have been better if I'd used the dough hook on a stand mixer instead of trying to knead by hand. I shaped the loaves, let them rise until doubled and baked. The end result was not very good.
War Bread
6 cups rolled oats, put into
boiling water, let stand a few
minutes, enough white flour to
make stiff batter. 2 cakes of compressed
yeast, dissolved in half glass warm
water, let stand overnight
knead in enough flour in the morning
to make loaves like ordinary bread,
let stand until it raises.
I cut the recipe in half, I simply didn't have a bowl large enough to hold 6 cups of oats plus the water, the flour and the the increase in volume as the dough rises. I added 3 cups of boiling water to 3 cups of oats and let it stand for 30 minutes.
I added 2 cups of water and a teaspoon of yeast that had been dissolved in 1/2 cup warm water. This resulted in a very dry mass so I added an additional cup of warm water and let it stand for 8 hours.
When that first rise was done I added 2 more cups of flour along with a teaspoon of salt. The original recipe doesn't call for salt, but it does generally improve the flavor of bread. This mass was very difficult to knead. I kneaded in an additional cup of flour and kneaded for quite a long time but it never developed the kind of elasticity you expect from a normal bread dough. The results might have been better if I'd used the dough hook on a stand mixer instead of trying to knead by hand. I shaped the loaves, let them rise until doubled and baked. The end result was not very good.
