Recipe: Molasses oatmeal loaf
From: Quick Breads
We're on to week 30 of the Cookbook Challenge, and the theme is "baked". Easy right?! For someone who does a lot of baking, this week's theme was great!
I was pretty keen to bake bread of some kind, but I ran out of time to do a proper loaf. Instead, I pulled out a book that has recipes for quick breads, and put together this loaf in just over an hour. It should have taken longer, but I didn't let the oats soak for the full 30 minutes - as soon as my oven had preheated I figured it was good enough.
The loaf is made with porridge oats, molasses or treacle (I used treacle), buttermilk and a mixture of wholemeal and white flour. And it is really good! The oats and wholemeal flour give a chewy, nutty, texture and flavour with a crisp crust. Because it has a mix of white and wholemeal flour, it's not too dense or heavy. When it came out of the oven, I couldn't wait for the loaf to cool completely before I cut a slice to taste. Bad, I know, but who can resist bread straight from the oven? Not me! It was great with butter (natch) and a second slice was also really good with honey. The third slice (ha!) saw the return of butter, but I do think a bit of sweetness works really well with this bread.
I'll definitely make it again. And I'm looking forward to eating the rest for breakfast tomorrow!
See previous Cookbook Challenge posts here.
Update: see the round up for this week at My Food Trail.
Molasses oatmeal loaf
From Quick Breads
Makes a medium loaf
2 tablespoons molasses/black treacle
300ml buttermilk
75g porridge oats
200g plain wholemeal flour
200g plain white flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon sea salt
25g unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes
1 large egg, beaten
a 450g loaf tin, well greased
Mix the molasses/treacle and buttermilk in a bowl and add the oats. Stir, and let it soak for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200°C.
In a separate bowl, stir together the flours, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Add the butter and rub it in, using the tips of your fingers until it looks like fine breadcrumbs.
Add the beaten egg and the soaked oats and mix well with a wooden spoon. It will be a very thick, heavy dough. Pour it into the greased tin and press it into a loaf shape.
Bake the loaf for 10 minutes, and then reduce the oven temperature to 180°C. Bake for a further 35 minutes.
Turn out on to a wire rack and let it cool completely before slicing.
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