Recipe: Oakcakes [edit]

Step 1

Mix the flour, salt and oatmeal. Warm the liquid and stir in gradually to make a smooth batter. Crumble in the yeast, stir gently and leave to stand in a warm place for 20 mins. Stir again and cook in a stong, well greased frying pan. Pour in enough batter to cover the base fairly thinly and trun out when cooked.

Step 2

Remarks:This recipe is heavily adapted, but works. Traditionally the oat cakes were cooked on a `backstone' - a stone or iron sheet, over an open fire. It is still possible in some places in Yorkshire to buy a `girdle', a cast iron sheet, about 12 in diameter, with a hoop handle - these are ideal. When cooked, the oatcakes where hung on plain wooden rack suspended from the ceiling, known as bread fleaks. The oatcakes were eaten either fresh or dried.

Step 3

They can be fried with bacon, or suttered and eaten alone with cheese, treacle, golden syrup etc.