Why It Works
- Clarified butter or ghee offers the oatcakes a wealthy, dairy-forward taste whereas making certain they keep crispy.
- Rolling the oatcake dough between two sheets of parchment paper and freezing it briefly makes it simpler to punch out.
At any time when my husband and I journey to Scotland to see his household, his grandmother Gaga greets us with an enormous field of do-it-yourself oatcakes: savory, crumbly crackers made with oats, water, and melted fats, comparable to shortening, butter, or lard. Although oatcakes don’t seem like a lot—they’re brown pucks of cooked oats—they’re hearty and satisfying, and very snackable.
These cracker-like savory cookies, or biscuits in British parlance, are made and bought all through the UK, the place they’re loved on their very own or with cheese. They are often sq., rectangular, or spherical, and range in thickness. Sadly for me and my husband, they’re extraordinarily troublesome to seek out in the USA. (I’ve solely had luck at specialty shops and on-line.) I spotted that if I needed to have oatcakes at any time when I needed, I’d should make them myself.
Fortunately, Gaga—the identical genius behind my one-bowl shortbread recipe—fortunately shared her oatcake recipe with me. Making oatcakes is a comparatively easy course of that requires simply stirring collectively oats, baking soda, salt, melted fats, and sizzling water, then rolling, slicing, and cooking them on a griddle or skillet. The type of oats and the fats you utilize, in addition to the cooking methodology, nonetheless, can drastically influence the biscuit’s texture. With some testing and tweaking to Gaga’s recipe, I’ve developed a foolproof methodology for getting ready crisp, buttery oatcakes that style identical to they had been made by your very personal Scottish grandmother.
Severe Eats / Amanda Suarez
Learn how to Make the Very Greatest Scottish Oatcakes
Use quick-cooking oats. Historically, oatcakes are made with Scottish oatmeal, that are stoneground and finer than rolled oats and steel-cut oats. Scottish oats aren’t as available in American grocery shops, so I opted for quick-cooking oats. Like Scottish oats, they’re finer in texture. As a result of quick-cooking oats are made to cook dinner extra rapidly, they take in liquid extra readily than rolled oats or steel-cut oats when mixed with sizzling water, making the dough extra cohesive and simpler to work with. In case you do have Scottish-style oats available, you possibly can positively use these as an alternative of quick-cooking oats, however avoid rolled oats or steel-cut oats, as utilizing these will end in a dough that’s troublesome (if not inconceivable!) to work with.
Attain for clarified butter or ghee. In my testing, lard, bacon fats, shortening, and vegetable oil produced the crispiest oatcakes—however essentially the most scrumptious ones had been made with butter. Not like animal fats, shortening, and oil, butter is just not 100% fats. Whereas fats proportion varies amongst butters, American butter usually comprises 80% fats, with the remaining quantity consisting of water and milk proteins. That water steams because the biscuit bakes, leading to a barely softer oatcake. A contented compromise is utilizing clarified butter or ghee: Each are almost 100% butterfat and provides the oatcakes a nice crispness whereas additionally offering a wealthy, buttery taste. For ease, I like to recommend utilizing store-bought clarified butter or ghee, however it’s also possible to make your own.
Roll and chill the oatcakes—then bake them. Historically, cooks knead the oatcake dough collectively on a floured floor, roll it out, then lower it into rounds or triangles. They then switch the lower oatcakes to a sizzling griddle to cook dinner, a fragile operation that may doubtless depart your flooring scattered with extra raw oatcakes than you’d like. To make the oatcakes simpler to chop and switch, I roll the dough between two sheets of parchment, then freeze it till it’s simply agency sufficient to chop. And as an alternative of cooking the oatcakes on a griddle, I bake them on a sheet pan, which cooks them extra evenly, requires zero flipping, and fills your private home with the nice and cozy, buttery odor of savory Scottish biscuits baking.
Severe Eats / Amanda Suarez
These Straightforward 5-Ingredient Crackers Are Scottish Grandma–Permitted
Prepare dinner Mode
(Maintain display awake)
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226g Scottish or quick-cooking oats (8 ounces; 2 1/2 cups), see notes
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1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt; for desk salt, use half as a lot by quantity
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1/4 teaspoon baking soda
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6 tablespoons melted clarified butter or ghee, homemade or store-bought (2 1/4 ounces; 66g)
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3/4 cup sizzling water, round 200ºF (93ºC)
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Regulate oven racks to second-from-top and second-from backside positions. Preheat to 350ºF (175ºC).
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In a medium bowl, stir oats, salt, and baking soda to mix. Add melted clarified butter or ghee to oat combination and, utilizing a versatile spatula, toss to evenly coat oats with fats. Add sizzling water and stir till combination begins to thicken, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Let sit till oat combination has hydrated and is barely sticky, about 5 minutes.
Severe Eats / Amanda Suarez
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Utilizing a versatile spatula, scrape oat combination onto a 18- by 13-inch piece of parchment. High with one other 18- by 13-inch piece of parchment so oat combination is sandwiched between and, utilizing a rolling pin, roll oat combination to 1/4-inch thickness. Seize each ends of the parchment, set onto a 18- by 13-inch rimmed baking sheet, and freeze till combination is agency however pliable, about half-hour. Line two 13- by 18-inch rimmed baking sheet with parchment; put aside.
Severe Eats / Amanda Suarez
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Set a clear piece of parchment in your kitchen counter. Take away oatcake combination from freezer. Peel off prime layer of parchment, then invert oatcake combination onto ready sheet of parchment. Utilizing a 3-inch spherical cookie cutter, lower out 16 oatcakes. (Scraps could be rerolled, frozen, and punched out into extra oatcakes.) Switch oatcakes to ready baking sheets, spacing them about 1 inch aside, and bake till crispy and frivolously browned, 25 to half-hour. Take away from oven and let cool utterly earlier than serving or storing.
Severe Eats / Amanda Suarez
Particular Tools
Whisk, versatile spatula, parchment paper, two or three 13- by 18-inch rimmed baking sheets (if you happen to solely have two you possibly can reuse the one you freeze on for baking), 3-inch cookie cutter
Notes
Don’t substitute Scottish or quick-cooking oats with rolled oats or steel-cut oats, because the latter two will produce a crumbly dough that gained’t maintain collectively.
Make-Forward and Storage
The oatcake combination could be rolled between parchment and frozen for as much as 3 days. When able to bake, let sit at room temperature till agency sufficient to punch, about 20 minutes.
After cooking and cooling, oatcakes could be saved in an hermetic container at room temperature for as much as 1 week.
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