Oat farls - good and bad news

11 years ago

The good news is I made the oat farls according to the recipe in the Scone Blowout thread (Grainlady - many thanks for posting the link). They came out great. The next day they weren't crumbly anymore and I cut each one of them into 4 slices for toasted cheese sandwiches. Next time I'll make 8 farls instead of 4 to get twice as much crust. It's so delicious.

The bad news is yesterday I tried to tweak the recipe and make farls from buckwheat berries, but the liquid ratio that works for the oats doesn't seem to work for the berries, which are toasted and far more dry. I should have realized that before hand but for some reason It hadn't occur to me.

For buckwheat poridge I always soak the berries overnight in plenty of water (they open up and become extremely soft). Then I rinse them & cook them in milk. For the oat farls I didn't soak the berries in water first - just rinsed them in a colander and mixed them in a bowl with the amount of buttermilk mentioned in the farl recipe & left the whole thing in the fridge to soak till I come back from work in the evening. Result: the berries drank up al the buttermilk, but remained pretty hard and unfarlable. I had to drown my grief in a large cup of NIDO.

Should the berries be soaked in water overnight and only them mixed with buttermilk? And what should be the buttermilk ratio to the berries in this case? Or should I just increase the ratio of buttermilk to berries? And if so, by how much?

Any and all suggestions will be much appreciated.

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Comments (10)

grainlady_ks
11 years ago
Glad you liked the recipe. I generally form two rounds (1-inch thick) and cut each round into 6 or 8 wedges, and that fills a cookie sheet. For a St. Patrick's Day Hooley (party) I cut them with a shamrock shaped cookie cutter. We're having oat farls for breakfast this morning, ironically enough :-).

I will have to give it a try with buckwheat groats and run the buckwheat through my flaker first. Great idea! I would say add enough buttermilk to the buckwheat groats to make sure they are coated with buttermilk, but not "swimming" in buttermilk, for the overnight soak. You can always adjust the hydration when you add the dry ingredients to make the dough.

I made the recipe with "heavy bran" instead of oats years ago. A local mill gave away some heavy bran through the Extension Office and asked a group of willing souls to try it in recipes. Heavy bran is made from whole wheat berries. It's tempered (steamed) like oats are for oatmeal, then flaked and dried. Heavy bran is a base ingredient for flaked cereal. Anyway, I used it like old-fashioned oats and made farls with it. It worked well, but oatmeal gives it the best flavor.

Have you ever used buckwheat groats in Tabouli? A good wheat-free alternative.

-Grainlady
wintercat_gw
Original Author
11 years ago
Thank you so much for the suggestion! That's what I'll do next time.

Buckwheat Tabouli sounds fantastic. How come I never thought of THAT??
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Bumblebeez SC Zone 7
11 years ago
I keep reading this as Oat Farts!
grainlady_ks
11 years ago
FARL: A farl (reduced form of the Scots fardel) is any of various roughly triangular flatbreads and cakes, traditionally made by cutting a round into four pieces.

The story goes.... A dear friend who loves Oat Farls (I make them for him for his birthday and Christmas as well as St. Patrick's Day) was talking to someone at a business meeting about the traditional Irish foods I make for our St. Patrick's Day Hooley and was overheard telling her how much he loves "Fart Laurels", so that's what we call them (snork)! Each time I've posted the recipe it's been misread as Oat Farts - which gives us all a good chuckle. ;-)

-Grainlady
whistle_gw
11 years ago
LOL, Bumblebeeze and Grainlady, I did the same thing! I needed a chuckle this morning!
cloudy_christine
11 years ago
Had to smile at the derivation.
Fardels as in Hamlet's famous soliloquy? "Who would fardels bear,/ To grunt and sweat under a weary life...."
Those fardels (burdens) were heavy. I wonder if the Scotch oatcakes were too?
ann_t
11 years ago
I had to smile too. I read it as "Old Farts" A few names came to mind. LOL!!

~Ann
stuartwanda
11 years ago
I'm so glad my eyes aren't as bad as I thought!
doucanoe
11 years ago
Glad to hear I am not the only one who read "Oat Farts"!

I had to open the thread just to see what the good news about oat farts could be!

LOL
agmss15
11 years ago
Me too.... Thought it was my phone's screen.

Oat farls - good and bad news

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wintercat_gw
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Oat farls - good and bad news

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wintercat_gwOriginal Author

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wintercat_gw
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