Baking beyond wheat: An oatscapade
Move over, oatmeal. Oats — and Rose Wilde — are entering the dessert chat.
Baking buds, hello! Today we begin a periodic series on baking beyond — beyond our buddy wheat flour, that is. We know him, we love him, but look: In the era of climate change, we also love not putting all our cakes in one bag of flour.
The modern food system has done this thing where we’ve grown fewer and fewer crops in order to grow more and more food, and it’s a gamble. Agrobiodiversity is nature’s insurance policy against threats like disease and climate change, yet the food system has said: No thank you! Insurance is for the weak!
Just three crops — wheat, rice, and maize — account for half the calories eaten on earth, a fact that re-enters my mind every time I open a bag of all-purpose flour to make yet another cake.
But I reach for that bag of flour because it’s what I grew up using — the only flour, in fact, that I grew up using. In the American baking aisle, to paraphrase David Foster Wallace, everything is wheat flour. So baking beyond requires some familiarization and a pinch of imagination, too.
We’re kicking off this series with a grain flour that deserves more credit than it gets: oat. Everything oat-related may live in Oatmeal’s Long Shadow (if somebody doesn’t make an ill-conceived documentary exposé with that title, I will lose it), but it can do so much more. Oat flour is a savory superstar in everything from Youmian noodles to flatbreads, its lack of gluten making it an easy choice for bakes without skyward ambition.
It also shines in a variety of desserts, as
, owner of LA microbakery Red Bread and author of the illuminating cookbook Bread and Roses, tells us in the Q&A below. It makes a mean shortbread tart, it shines in many cookies, it can thicken puddings instead of cornstarch — it can even team up with all-purpose flour to make lofty bakes like layer cakes.Find oat flour in any major grocery store, and look for “toasted” oat flour if it’s extra-nutty flavor you seek.
Read on for a b-oat-ful (someone stop me!) of baking knowledge from Rose, then put it into action with her oat spice crumble biscuit rolls and my ginger bend-and-snaps. Move over, oatmeal. Oats are entering the dessert chat.
Baking with oat flour 101: A Q&A with Rose Wilde
The following Q&A has been lightly condensed for clarity.
Rose, I've been obsessed with your work since I first saw photos of your cakes. So botanical! So artistic! So trypophobia-inducing! They always give me something to think about, because they often use a new-to-me grain flour, whether barley, millet, rye, or oat. In Bread and Roses, you talk about the appeal of whole grains. For anyone who hasn’t read it, what’s the gist?
Whole grains are a whole world of flavor that we are missing out on! In most of the world these grains are celebrated and regularly used. But we've forgotten them in this country in favor of commodity flour — stripped flour that is classified by strength instead of variety and flavor. I want everyone to EAT MORE, meaning more flavor, more nutrition, and more fun in the kitchen. Using whole grains also supports community businesses like millers and farmers. Additionally, it has the added and much needed impact of strengthening food security by providing genetic diversity in our fields. This makes our agriculture more resilient to disease, drought and other crises of climate change currently facing our planet. There is just no reason not to use whole grains!
Let's talk oats. The oat recipes in Bread and Roses appear in your chapter on grains of Africa. (And those recipes include your award-winning chocolate chunk oatmeal cookie, which is reason enough on its own to buy the cookbook.) You've traveled so much; many of your recipes are influenced by flavors and ideas you've encountered elsewhere. What uses of oats and oat flour around the world have inspired you or caught your interest?
Oat is a great grain for everyone to start exploring because so many of us are already familiar with it via oatmeal. There is flaked oatmeal we eat a lot here in the United States, but in the United Kingdom they love it in cracked or steel-cut form. Oat flour can be used for any kind of flat bread you can dream up. It's naturally gluten-free and tender, so it also has tons of pastry applications. I love it in a simple shortbread tart, you can fill with any custard or curd and top with seasonal fruit. Oat flour is also a great ingredient to thicken puddings if cornstarch isn't your vibe.
I used to — and sometimes still do — find the variety that exists among various whole grains intimidating, which is why I love the guides and resources in your book like the Flour Tasting Wheel. The flavor notes on that wheel made me want to ask: What does oat flour taste like?
I never like to tell people what a grain tastes like definitively. Taste is so informed by memory and culture, it is meant to be personal. I will say for me it is earthy, reminding me of roasted nuts, cream and milk chocolate. I use it in a lot of cookies and still enjoy a bowl most mornings.
What kind of baked goods do you like to use oat flour in? Does it typically need to be balanced with some amount of white / all-purpose wheat flour?
Unless you want lift, you don't necessarily need to borrow the isolated strength of "white" flour. But if you are trying to make a loaf of bread, a croissant, or some other layered pastry, a small addition of white flour or another strong whole grain is helpful. My book gives the guidance to do the famous oatmeal cookie with an all-purpose and also 100% oat flour. Choose your own adventure. I think it's important for people to remember that "white" flour is new in terms of the history of man and grains. Most of these things we love were first made with whole grains because that's what we had. Also the big change and yes, BIG FLAVOR, comes from using more whole grains. It isn't necessary that you always use 100%. If everyone used 10-30% in their recipes, no structural changes would take place or any need for adjustments but you would have a HUGE impact on taste and nutrition.
Is there any trick to storing oats or oat flour?
We need to bust a myth when it comes to storing grains. There is no need to store grains in anything other than an airtight container at room temperature, unless you live on the equator or in another hot, humid climate. In that case, you would need to refrigerate most foods to keep from spoiling. Again, important to remember that refrigeration is a very new technology and grains have been stored for much longer without it. In fact, granaries were the first sources of wealth, or "banks," for early civilizations.
I love that you pair regional flavors, à la "what grows together goes together,” like your oat walnut cake with banana marmalade, rose geranium custard, and sorghum buttercream. I’ve been thinking about the role oats could play in rebuilding eroded farmland in the midwest, so I wondered if you’d be down for a brainstorm. If you were going to make a regional, midwestern, oat-y bake, what would it be?
Oh how fun! A lot of flavors that are beloved in the midwest are not native; since we live in a global world of trade we get to play with so much. But if I were to stick with what grows together in pairing with a grain from another region, I'd probably do an oatmeal-flour shortbread tart with a crunchy toffee layer, topped with peanut butter custard and a big cloud of vanilla marshmallow-fluff torched meringue.
Rose Wilde’s Oat Spice Crumble Biscuit Rolls
Rose’s recipe notes: Sometimes, your cinnamon rolls don’t need frosting. Stay with me on this! Topped with buttery crumbly oats, they are sublime, a sleeper hit that proves brown is beautiful. Feel free to top with as much or as little crumble as you like! The crumble is great on pies, cakes, and pastries. The crumble keeps for 3 months in the freezer. The buns can be made a day in advance and kept in your fridge or freezer before baking. If storing in the freezer, allow to thaw out a little until it can take the imprint of a finger when pressed gently. The baked buns keep for 3 days at room temperature.
Makes 12 biscuit rolls
Crumble topping
250g dark brown sugar
120g all-purpose flour
120g rolled oats
3g salt
160g unsalted butter
Filling
200g unsalted butter, at room temperature
250g dark brown sugar
12g ground cinnamon
4g ground cardamom
2g freshly ground black pepper
3g salt
Crumble biscuits
340g whole milk
10g freshly squeezed lemon juice
110g oat flour
510g all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
15g baking powder
6g baking soda
4g salt
235g unsalted butter, cold
Prepare the crumble topping: Combine all the topping ingredients in a medium bowl and smoosh together with your fingers until crumbly. Set aside.
Prepare the filling: Combine all the filling ingredients in a medium bowl, whisking together until combined, then set aside.
Prepare the crumble biscuits: Combine the milk and lemon juice in a small bowl and set aside to sour.
Combine the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl and whisk together. Toss the cold cubed butter into the flour mixture to coat. Working with your fingertips, break up the butter into small pieces by placing between your thumb and other fingers and acting as if you are going to snap your fingers. Once no butter pieces are larger than a dime, make a well in the center of your bowl and add the soured milk, then stir with a wooden spoon until combined.
Lightly flour a clean work surface and dump the dough onto it. Press down flat to 1 inch thick and cut into three sections. Stack these sections on top of one another and press down again. Cut in half and stack once more. Roll out the dough to a 13-by-18-inch rectangle, about a ½-inch thick, then use an offset spatula to spread the filling all over, making sure to get the edges. Roll up the dough lengthwise into a spiral and cut into 12 equal portions, sliding the loose ends of each spiral underneath it to secure. Place on a parchment-lined sheet tray, spiral side up, snuggled close to one another. Sprinkle the crumble very generously all over the spirals. Place in the freezer to chill for 1 or 2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 375F. Bake the biscuits for 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown. Serve immediately.
Ginger Bend-and-Snaps
With less sugar and big zing from freshly grated ginger, these cookies are a sophisticated take on gingersnaps. They’re also made with 100% oat flour, whose lack of gluten causes the dough to spread as it bakes, forming a satisfyingly flat and even cookie. If you’re the type of dessert demon who likes a little bend with your snap, knock the 18-minute bake time down to 15 minutes; otherwise, let the cookies cool, then snap away. And don’t skip the sprinkle of flaky salt — it brings out the ginger that much more. Recipe adapted and oat-ified from a cookie in Andrew Weil’s Fast Food, Good Food, and inspired by the gingersnap method in the Pensacola Junior League’s Some Like it South.
Makes about 2 dozen cookies
245g (2 and ¾ cups, scooped and leveled) oat flour
100g (½ cup) sugar
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
98g (1/2 cup) extra virgin olive oil
98g (¼ cup) molasses
1 egg
Flaky salt, for sprinkling
Preheat the oven to 350F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the first seven ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the last four ingredients. Add the dry ingredients and mix well with a flexible spatula.
Drop spoonfuls of the dough spaced three inches apart on the baking sheets (the oat flour makes them spread a lot in the oven). Sprinkle each cookie with a bit of flaky salt.
Bake for 18 minutes if you want a proper snap, or 15 if you like a little bend. Allow cookies to cool completely on the pan, or start snacking while they’re still warm.
Rose is the best!!
Both recipes look great! I can't wait to try them. I've also added Bread and Roses to my wish list, thank you for introducing me to Rose.