The book arrived on Saturday AM so excellent service there, herself got to it first and is reading it before me. From a quick skim through it does look as good as his other stuff.
Yesterday I ran a pound or so of flaked oats through the blender until it was a very fine flour, took a while as even when fed it through in small amounts the blades rapidly formed a cavity and you had to keep shaking it. No worries as I was inbetween times helping the Mem' make 11lb of apple and stawberry jam and 2.5 lb of extra vinergry mango chutney.
Anyroad I found a recipe for clap bread on the net and doubled it to in the end 7 near plate sized pieces.
12oz of fine oat flour
2oz plain flour
2 level teaspoons of fine sea salt
2 level teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda
Mix and prepare as many baking trays as your oven can take by lining them with baking paper. I started preheatingthe oven to 180C or 170 if you remember it's a fan oven...
I melted some beef dripping in a small bowl floating in a larger bowl of boiling water and added two tablespoons to the mix along with enough boiling water to make a pliable dough. Then i gave it a good need and broke off a piece about as big as a golf ball and pounded it into a tight ball then i used my hands and a bit of flour to make a disc. When it started to be difficult to handle I put it onto a cutting board and battered it into a rough disc that was a about a mill thick. The descriptions I've read refer to it being paper thick. I kept turning it over and at times resorted to a rolling pin and a small amount of flour to stop it sticking. As I transferred the piece to the baking tray i brushed off the loose flour with a brush , the sort you use for glazing the tops of pies, i never remeber what the proper name is.
Once I had three done I slapped them into the oven for 25 minutes. After 15 I moved the trays around and at 20 flipped the breads over, the bottoms were slightly more done than the tops. I repeated the baking until all 7 were done and on cooling racks. There was a pleasant nutty smell.
I had two for tea with butter, Cheshire chease ( one of the lads wasted the
nice Lancashire crumbly on top of some Mexican rolled up things ) and pickle. Very crisp and with a pleasent nutty flavour. Would I have them over Staffs or Darbysh' oatcakes if I had to choose? , well, No, but I grew up with soft oatcakes but as a occasional thing yes I'd definitely have them again. They are much easier and quicker to make than soft oatcakes and could be easily made in the field dry fried on a flat rock, thick frying pan or best of all a iron girdle/ bakestone.
This is a about as fay as I get but as I sat here with the TV etc off, no traffic passing and the only noises people talking, birds and a donkey braying the field out back, chomping on something that would have been the main source of carbs to the weavers who worked here back in the late 18th C I felt a connection, or possibly indigestion. Your choice.
ATB
Tom
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