Welcome Friends welcome back to the kitchen welcome back to Sunday morning
the old cookbook show today we're going to do a recipe out of this cookbook
called the Scots kitchen with old time recipes this was published in Scotland
in 1929. um it is it is an extended research
paper of sorts the author states in the preface that they are trying to preserve
um old Scottish recipes that are in danger of disappearing
and are in danger of Disappearing because the world in 1929 is changing
that it's becoming a global Community new ingredients are being brought in Old
ingredients are sort of Disappearing and these are recipes that they think really
need to be uh preserved which in a way I think is kind of
interesting um I've got other cookbooks from other
regions that have the same stated purpose I've got ones from Louisiana
that are Cajun ones from Louisiana that are Creole and those are from sort of
pre-World War one where they think that the whole world is changing and
nothing's going to be the same anymore I mean they're correct
but at the same time you know you look at this this cookbook and there are
recipes in here um that use ingredients
that weren't in Scotland say pre-1700 or weren't in Scotland pre-1600 so those
recipes in and of themselves have been changed through migration or
exploration and ingredients being brought back to Scotland so it's sort of
fighting to keep food exactly the same but in some ways the food that it's it's
fighting to keep the same has already been changed many times over the years
um through an exchange of ideas that's ongoing forever
enough about that so what we're going to make is something called Bruni
and um we're going to start out with oatmeal
and I'm using uh Scottish steel cut oatmeal not the large flake or the
rolled oatmeal that is most common here in Canada or the United States as well
probably to that I'm going to add flour foreign
and I'm going to add butter
and I'm going to put the mixer on and bring those together
Now the recipe says to rub the butter into the flour and the oatmeal with your
fingers without a doubt the best way to do it to
get in there with your fingers and rub it together
I'm really busy today I I just I don't have time to get in and always be
washing my hands and I can hear my Scottish grandmother in a really thick
accent um
yelling at me that she wouldn't need a machine like this
her hands are good
now I've said this before a well-written recipe the ingredient list has the
ingredients listed in the order that you're going to use them in the recipe
and then they're mentioned again in the method
this recipe reads without measurements of course without
measurements oatmeal flour brown sugar butter
so I've already got the flour the oatmeal and the butter in the mixer
because that's what it tells me to do in the written recipe and the written
recipe the method gives the amounts but there's no mention in the written recipe
of the brown sugar and how much brown sugar to use or when to put it in now
I'm assuming from the ingredient list that I'm supposed to put the brown sugar
in at the beginning when I start this whole process so I'm going to put it in
um I had to guess at the amount of brown sugar to put in I looked at a bunch of
other recipes that are sort of the same thing and and looked at amounts and came
up with an amount that sort of makes sense
so I've I've I'll put that in the written recipe Down Below in the
description box so in goes the brown sugar at this point I'm going to put in
the baking soda
and the ground ginger
the recipe at this point calls for treacle an egg and buttermilk and it
doesn't give an amount of Buttermilk that you need just enough
um and it asks for treacle now if you live
somewhere that you know treacle isn't a staple on the grocery store shelves say
Canada and the United States and you have to order treacle either from Amazon
or go to you know the old the British shoppie uh in town in order to get some
don't worry about it just use molasses and it asks for the treacle to be heated
that's why there's this little bit of foam on top
so I'm gonna put just a little bit of Buttermilk in with the egg I don't know
how much buttermilk I need but I'm gonna put a little in
and just mix those together before I put them into the mixer
corn syrup would work corn syrup would be just fine
golden syrup would be just fine all of those things
um treacle in in the end tastes a lot like
molasses anyway so I've got the egg and a little bit of
Buttermilk in I'm gonna put in the treacle
and I imagine the treacle is heated just to make it easier to pour
get a little spatula here and get the rest of it out
and I'm supposed to add enough buttermilk to make it what does it say
soft enough
to drop from a spoon
now one of the things that makes this cookbook a great resource is
um that it's essentially a research paper
it draws recipes from a lot of older Scottish cookbooks it draws recipes from
a lot of cookbooks that I own from the 1700s Scottish cookbooks from the 1700s
it also draws recipes from manuscripts from even earlier times and
manuscripts are you know incredible because they're they're handwritten
recipes that someone actually made in their kitchen they are a record of what
a family ate written out and the book is filled
um with footnotes and reading lists and if they make a statement there's a
there's a footnote that leads you to another book that you can read about you
know where they got that research information from
so one of the things I've learned is that you know
the buttermilk that I'm using here the buttermilk that is sold in Canada in the
United States at the grocery store which is not
actually anything to do with the manufacture of butter other than it's
called buttermilk this is uh this is just in United States and Canada if it's
labeled buttermilk it is more than likely 95 of the time more than likely
there's always an exception on asterisks so on and so on
um it's a fermented milk product they take one percent milk they inoculate it
with the bacteria and they ferment it and that's what you end up with
something that's a little bit thicker something that's Tangy something that's
high in acidity this recipe in this cookbook from the
time period that they're talking about it would have actually been the liquid
left over after churning butter from milk
called buttermilk so already we're you know we're working
from something that's slightly different but you do the best you can
now it says to turn into a Buttered Tin and my understanding is that they're
actually asking for a loaf pan so there we go loaf pan
and I think I got the consistency right on the batter so in it goes
the recipe says to bake this in a medium oven for an hour to an hour and a half
which is a fairly large span of time or a fairly big difference in time
so they were allowing for a fairly wide range of what medium temperature meant
I've chosen 350. I'm actually thinking that I'm going to turn it down to 325.
this strikes me as being something that you don't want to bake too quickly you
really want to give the oats a chance to soak up some liquid as they're cooking
because if you bake it too quickly they're not going to soften enough I
wouldn't think um
yeah I'm going to turn it down to 325.
friends hey Jules or cake because I trip myself up on the way through interesting
it's got oats it's got oats okay the oats seem to is that I mean
those look like they're on the bottom steel cut oats okay so it'll be crunchy
aha I like crunchy I like crunchy when you know it's
supposed to be crunchy
it's crunchy miniature
so I had been worried that if I baked it too fast
the oats wouldn't soak up because steel cut Oaks need steel-cut oats
take longer to cook they take longer to soak up liquid
and they haven't soaked up much at all they are still too crunchy
which you know then makes me think
we're steel cut oats I mean in this time period in Scotland steel cut oats were
oatmeal is that what it's supposed to be
that's what I'm saying if you know it's supposed to be crunchy then it's crunchy
yeah I mean it's like when you have crunchy cookies and they're crunchy
I like the flavor I think it's interesting that they're
crunchy if you threw some nuts in there as well it would kind of give you
different levels of crunchy because it's not like you're eating the raw oats
that are almost impossible to chew no they are quite Snappy crunchy
yeah the ginger is really nice um I think slathered with a little bit
of toasted and then slathered with butter for breakfast a little honey yeah
it's perhaps it's meant to be more hearty than no definitely then uh I say
that as I somehow needed to you know touch my belly like hearty things filled
your belly and it's called orkney oatmeal
gingerbread and then down here in the so many notes in this cookbook
you love it is that the personal note or yes so brown sugar is in the ingredient
list okay but there's no amounts in the ingredient list no but brown sugar does
not appear in the method where they give the amounts and tell you when to put it
in so you just so when you think you add it so I had to figure it out I had to
figure out how much brown sugar I think I think I nailed it I think it's got the
appropriate sweetness um but it's also called a thick Bannock
from orkney and Shetland okay I'm not going to Shetland man there's too many
murders in Chapman okay that's a reference to the television show not
necessarily real life just want to make sure that's very clear
it's like anything if you've got a mystery detective in your community
apparently there's lots of murders there too I'm not going to mid-summer I'm not
going to Shetland I'm not going where it wasn't Angela Lansbury oh somewhere on
the east coast of the US yeah I wouldn't go there I wouldn't go there either so
anyway I think that's a I think that's I think
that's interesting I think that's interesting I like the flavor I'm not as
down with the crunches really crunchy I think if you made it with large flake
oats um it would probably be suit your suit
me it would suit me it would probably suit the modern palette a little bit
more I can see my grandfather
chewing that up and really enjoying it yeah okay so
um Bruni thanks for stopping by see you again soon