breadsecrets blog

Rachel Allen’s TV show “Bake!” was shown on BBC1 yesterday. What a wasted opportunity. She used sugar and warm water from the hot tap (Yuck! Water that has been sitting in a tank is not for cooking with!) to activate the yeast, then left the bread to ferment in a warm place for two hours before shaping and proving. Also, she slashed some of the loaves right after shaping, rather than just before they went into the oven, which is just wrong.

If you’ve read the main site you’ll know that the best tasting bread comes from a long, slow fermentation. Adding sugar, and putting the dough in a warm place just speed fermentation up, giving insufficient time for the flavour to develop.

There’s definitely a good TV series to be made by a real artisan bread baker … maybe Dan Lepard or Andrew Whitley? They may not be as pretty and smiley as Rachel Allen, but they know what they’re talking about when it comes to making good bread. Or if any TV producers would like to contact me …

Being a native of North Staffordshire (UK), I was brought up on these, and make a batch every week or two (the ones you can get from the supermarket are OK but not as good as those from a proper oatcake shop, or home made, of course). So, imagine my surprise when, having made a batch this morning, my wife pointed out the “In praise of Staffordshire Oatcakes” editorial in today’s Guardian newspaper. However, they didn’t include a recipe, so here’s mine.

One Dozen Staffordshire Oatcakes

8 oz/225g fine oatmeal (if you can only find medium oatmeal or porridge oats, blitz them in a food processor for a couple of minutes - you should be able to get them through a sieve with only a little bran residue at the end. Tip the residue in as well.)
4 oz/112g wholemeal flour
4 oz/112g plain flour (called “all purpose” in the US. Don’t use strong bread flour)
15 fl oz/430g skimmed or semi skimmed milk
15 fl oz/430g water
1 teaspoon “easy blend” dried yeast
1 teaspoon salt
Vegetable oil for frying

Mix all the ingredients in a large jug or bowl. You can use an electric whisk to get the lumps out. Cover with cling film/plastic wrap, and leave at room temperature for at least two hours. The flavour will improve if you leave the batter covered in the fridge overnight.

You should now have a bubbly, runny batter, more or less the same consistency as normal pancake/crepe batter but grainy because of the oatmeal. From here on, you’re just making pancakes. A good pan is really important - you can find a non-stick crepe pan cheaply at many supermarkets or kitchen shops (mine only cost 7 UKP; I bought two so I can cook two at once), or a “tava” from an Asian supermarket is also ideal. Oil the pan lightly and heat it until you see smoke coming off - it must be good and hot. Wipe the oil over the pan using a wad of paper towel, so the whole pan surface is coated with a thin layer of oil.

Pour in a ladleful of batter and quickly tilt the pan around so it is covered with batter. Cook until the top has solidified and is darker and very slightly translucent, then loosen with a spatula and toss. You can flip the oatcake with a spatula if you like, but they do break sometimes, so it’s worth learning to toss them properly.
The cooked side should be evenly browned like this:

Cook the other side until well browned.

Home made Staffordshire oatcakes

After every two or three oatcakes, add a drop more oil and wipe round again. Do NOT wash the pan afterwards, and never use it for anything else other than pancakes/oatcakes.

The classic way to serve oatcakes is to put cheddar cheese on the top (that’s the side that was cooked second) and put under the grill (broiler if you’re in the US) until the cheese is melted. You can then add other savoury fillings of your choice: bacon, ketchup, HP sauce, sausage, mushrooms … then roll them up and eat. Or you can have them just with butter, or with jam, honey, nutella, etc.

Hope you enjoy making and eating this traditional food - let us know how you get on.

Here’s an idea to save a bit of time and work when making bread in a loaf tin. Instead of greasing the tin, make yourself a reuseable liner from non-stick heatproof pan liner sheet (sold as “magic carpet” sheet in Lakeland shops in the UK). I drew round the outside of the base of my tins, then cut in diagonally to a few millimetres inside of the corners to allow for the thickness of the tin walls. Then I folded the sheet and put it inside the tin and trimmed off the excess.

I made two liners and have used them a few times with no problems, so I don’t need to grease the tins any more, and never need to worry about loaves sticking.

Breadsecrets.com is nearly up and running, and I’ve just installed the latest version of WordPress so hopefully the bugs that have stopped the blog working will have disappeared. I’m writing up my pizza method, and will do a recipe for bagels, then I think the site will be ready to unleash on the world.