Porridge oats versus rolled oats - are they the same? are they different?

Tonight I made a batch of Saxon Honey Oatcakes. The recipe called for porridge oats, which I don't have access to, so I used rolled oats. The other ingredients are butter, honey, and dried fruit. All the recipes I looked at online showed nicely formed little cakes, but I couldn't get mine to hold together! The rolled oats kept falling apart. I finally managed and they were very tasty, but it got to wondering why mine didn't turn out like all the ones I saw picture of online. They all appear to be British recipes. So could it have been the rolled oats? Is there that much of a difference?

Just to confuse you further, we use rolled oats for baking and wholegrain oats to make porridge.

NZ tends to follow UK terminology.

The wholegrain oats are not very good for baking as they are firmer and need longer to cook - we soak them overnight before cooking in the morning.

The recipes for Saxon honey oakcakes sounds very similar to the antipodean Anzac biscuits that are made with golden syrup instead of honey and I use rolled oats to bake them.

The only time that I used wholegrain oats to bake Anzacs, it was a bit if a disaster, the biscuits were really dry and fell apart.

The rolled oats are much smaller and softer.

Do you have a photo of the oats that you used?

I was raised in the UK, though now living in Portugal.

What the UK sells as porridge oats - like these ones sold in Tescos - look like this in close up...





The terminology has changed over time, as the porridge oats I knew as a child were coarser and had to be soaked and boiled for quite a while, but this sort is what I've known all my time as an adult. You can add fruit and nuts and eat straight away as muesli, or add water and shove in the microwave for 90 seconds and have porridge. They will go gloopy and sticky with very little persuasion.

To me, 'rolled oats' were what you fed to horses so I'm really not sure how that term compares to what I call porridge oats. I suspect they are larger, less 'hammered' and less inclined to go sticky when you mix them water and try to make biscuits out of them. Or cookies. It's times like this I really feel the meaning of the phrase divided by a common language...

In Megan's post the ones on the right I would call 'jumbo oats' the ones on the left 'porage oats'. I think they are both 'rolled' as that is how the grain is processed - flattened between rollers. The gap determining how fine the porage oats are. I like to use jumbo oats for my porage because I like the extra texture this gives, but I could imagine in baking that the results will be quite different and the recipe may need tweaking. Maybe try more liquid and slower longer cooking.

Good points about terminology. Like Burra, what I call them now is based on my past and not necessarily up-to-date. So I took Megan's suggestion to post photos, but paid more attention to what the labels were.

The first photo is what I used and called "rolled oats." The package label calls them "old-fashioned oats."



My other option was "quick oats."



Both are labeled whole grain. It's my understanding that quick oats are rolled like old-fashioned but chopped for quicker cooking. Old-fashioned oats are to be cooked 3 - 5 minutes while quick oats cook in 1 minute. They also sell "steel-cut oats" here, which look like whole grains that have been chopped into smaller bits. Those take 30 - 40 minutes cooking time.

I've always used old-fashioned for making oatmeal because I find the quick oats cook to a pasty texture. Like Nancy, we prefer the heartier texture as well. But maybe the quick would have been a better option.

Here's how my oatcakes turned out.



They tasted really good but they were pretty crumbly.

The photo with the recipe looked like this (source for recipe and next two photos - Anglo-Saxon Cake Recipe



And here's the picture of oats included with the recipe



They look like the oats I used so you can see why I'm puzzled!

On closer inspection, I see the recipe actually calls for "Scottish porridge oats." Maybe there are different kinds of porridge oats?

Like Nancy says, the recipe definitely needs tweaking. My initial change was to add more oats to soak up the liquid and let them sit for awhile to absorb it. But the results are seen in my photo.

Leigh Tate wrote:On closer inspection, I see the recipe actually calls for "Scottish porridge oats." Maybe there are different kinds of porridge oats?

I bet that photo was just a random one of 'oats' pulled from somewhere to illustrate the article.

I found this one online from here which shows the contents of a bag labelled 'Scottish Porridge Oats' and they look pretty much like the ones I buy.



Of course mine are actually bought in Portugal and labelled "oat flakes - soft'.

I'm pretty sure last year they were 'oat flakes - fine'.

I agree with Burra that they have used a stock photo to illustrate the oats in the recipe.

Your biscuits look just like mine did when I used wholegrain oats for my Anzac biscuits.

The recipe photo of the biscuits looks like my anzacs when I add dried fruit to the recipe - if I make them plain, they spread out more when baked and are crisper and lighter.

I like to add chopped raisins/cranberries/apricot/apples/chocolate chips etc. The added fruit makes the biscuits denser.

We are down to the last two anzacs in our tin, will make plain ones next time.

Here's the Edmonds cookbook recipe for anzac biscuits if you feel like trying them out sometime.

Ya'll are probably right about the oats picture with the recipe. Honestly, I just don't see how they could have gotten that cookie with those oats and no flour. Burra's photo looks similar to what I used. "Flakes" is probably the most accurate description!

There are dozens of Saxon oatcake recipes out there, all pretty much the same. My goal was to find "authentic" British recipes from circa A.D. 400 to 1066 and cook a period meal. It's my project this year of trying to cook the cuisines of my ancestors. I put authentic in quotes because while I'm finding a lot of recipes, most have modern substitutions for ingredients and techniques. Now I'm wondering how oats were prepared in Anglo-Saxon England, as in, did they even roll oats like we do?

Megan, your Anzac biscuits look more like the picture in the recipe, and I notice yours includes flour. They look similar to a US oatmeal cookie. I like the idea of adding coconut, what kind do you use? I can get shredded flaked, or flour. We don't have golden syrup though, what is it made from? I notice you cut the sugar, I do the same for all my sweet recipes!

I think I'm going to see what I can learn about milling grains back then.

Good discussion on the different processing levels of commercial oats in the following link.  Note that many/most 'rolled oat' categories are often steamed, then re-dried before packaging for sale in order to improve certain quality aspects of the product.

https://wholegrainscouncil.org/whole-grains-101/easy-ways-enjoy-whole-grains/grain-month-calendar/oats-%E2%80%93-january-grain-month/types

well this thread certainly explains why my scottish oatcakes last week came out more rustic than I would have liked (there was no using a biscuit cutter, i could barely get them from the table to the pan for baking). I had no idea that porridge oats are what I've always considered "quick" oats!

(here we can get 3 types- the two options Leigh shows (one that if you mix with water it starts getting goopy immediately, the other stays relatively intact) plus one that is somewhere between the processed oats and oat flour. Since we can also get oat flour I'm really not sure what people use it for. Maybe baby food?

Tereza Okava wrote:well this thread certainly explains why my scottish oatcakes last week came out more rustic than I would have liked (there was no using a biscuit cutter, i could barely get them from the table to the pan for baking).

Tereza, I'm glad I'm not the only one!

Since we can also get oat flour I'm really not sure what people use it for. Maybe baby food?

I make oat flour in my blender from rolled oats. I add it to bread, biscuits, pancakes, pizza dough. Anytime I want a mixed whole grain dough or batter, I add some oat flour. Very tasty.

I'm starting to think that the original oatcakes were made with more of a rough meal that also contained quite a bit of flour from the milling process. I know my hand grain grinder can't make as fine a flour as my electric grain mill does. I don't know when they invented rolling oats, but it must have been some time later in history. Why it's so popular for oatcake recipes is puzzling to me. I'm wondering how many folks actually test their recipes before putting them online.

John Weiland wrote: many/most 'rolled oat' categories are often steamed, then re-dried before packaging for sale in order to improve certain quality aspects of the product.

John, I've been wondering about that, especially when I compare my rolled oat pic to the recipe's Scottish porridge oat pic. What I'm getting looks more like actual smashed oat grains, while the porridge oats look consistent in color and texture.

I'm thinking being steamed and re-dried would change the oats ability to absorb the liquids in the recipe, as well as change the texture after cooking. That might explain why the final oatcakes look so different from what I made.

Maybe I missed it in the thread, but are these cakes or biscuits to be considered near equivalents to the 'oatmeal cookie' of North America?  I think most recipes of the cookie call for a rolled oat-wheat flour mixture (~1:1 ratio?) in order to get proper texture and reduce crumbling.  But also, if the quick oats version of rolled oats are used, they do hydrate more quickly and completely than 'old fashioned' rolled oats or something even less processed.  This leads to production of the beta-glucan gumminess that also helps hold the mass together.

John Weiland wrote:Maybe I missed it in the thread, but are these cakes or biscuits to be considered near equivalents to the 'oatmeal cookie' of North America?

No, not at all. They're supposed to be authentic recipe oatcakes from the Anglo-Saxon period of England (about 410 to 1066).

i just went looking for the recipe I was making and found on that very page... a long treatise on types of oats. To be fair I probably never scrolled all the way through it all, and if so it was years ago!
https://moorlandseater.com/scottish-oatcakes/   (not a cookie type, more like a cracker and a US biscuit had an oaty baby)
(i am definitely that person who WILL NOT scroll through the 5000 words and 50 photos that precede the recipe. I simply don't have the bandwidth, I am jumping directly to the recipe. And this is occasionally the consequence....)

Tereza Okava wrote:not a cookie type, more like a cracker and a US biscuit had an oaty baby

Oh yes, oatcakes you would normally make with oatmeal (ground oats), often with made with wheatflour as well, but not necessarily. If you use fine oatmeal you can make thinner oatcakes, but I imagine that (as you found) oatflakes would make them very fragile.

I found this (slightly incomplete) image of different ways to buy oats which may be helpful:


source

What they call 'Scottish oatmeal' can be fine or medium ground.

amazing. who knew so much confusion could stem from the single word "oatmeal"?

Leigh Tate wrote:

They look similar to a US oatmeal cookie. I like the idea of adding coconut, what kind do you use? I can get shredded flaked, or flour. We don't have golden syrup though, what is it made from? I notice you cut the sugar, I do the same for all my sweet recipes!

Hello Leigh,

I have found that the fine dessicated coconut is best for baking with.

The larger shredded and/or flakes tend to make the cakes/biscuits too dry.

I use the latter when cooking curries.

There are only a few cooks whose recipes I am confident to follow without reducing the sugar - some baking recipes need the sugar reduced in half!

Forgot to add that there are lots of recipes online for homemade golden syrup - here's one

https://sweetmouthjoy.com/golden-syrup/

If these are meant to be authentic oatcakes, it would be oatmeal that was used, not porridge oats or rolled oats. They need to include the flour from the roughly milled oats.

Though oat cookies like Anzac biscuits are delicious, proper oatcakes aren't anything like cookies or biscuits. Not usually overly sweet or overly salty, so it could adapt to whatever it was eaten with. And flat, more like a crispbread or a large round cracker, but harder.

The north of Scotland wasn't suitable for growing wheat, so the oatcake was used as a bread equivalent.

I think if you put rolled oats or porridge oats through a grain mill at a coarse setting, you might get something like the right thing.

Jane Mulberry wrote:If these are meant to be authentic oatcakes, it would be oatmeal that was used, not porridge oats or rolled oats.

proper oatcakes aren't anything like cookies or biscuits. . . flat, more like a crispbread or a large round cracker, but harder. . . The north of Scotland wasn't suitable for growing wheat, so the oatcake was used as a bread equivalent.

That sounds like the Scottish oatcake recipe Tereza found and posted a link to.


Source: https://moorlandseater.com/scottish-oatcakes/

What I'm actually looking for, however, is a Saxon oatcake recipe rather than Scottish. But they are supposed to be authentic Saxon food, even if the modern recipes don't turn out. The photo of the flour on that webpage looks more like a rough, floury meal, so I think that's what's been missing in all the online recipes I found.

I think part of the problem is that there are so many recipes for "anglo-saxon oatcakes" on the internet that are all copies of each other and aren't at all authentic! Almost all are sweet cookie types for kids to make as a part of history lessons, and almost all use rolled oats, also not authentic.

Honey cakes most likely would have been a rare luxury for most anglo-saxons, only eaten on feast days. Coarsely milling whatever oats you have, whether labelled rolled oats or porridge oats should work to give the right effect.

The old lady's "cakes" King Alfred burned are far more likely to have been a type of unleavened flatbread, probably a mix of pea flour and rough milled oats or barley. This is an interesting article on what anglo-saxons might have really eaten and how they cooked them: https://earlybread.wordpress.com/2017/05/13/how-to-make-everyday-anglo-saxon-bread-version-2-hearthcakes-or-kichells/

Reminds me of the excellent article you wrote on using wood ash for leavening!

Jane Mulberry wrote:
The old lady's "cakes" King Alfred burned are far more likely to have been a type of unleavened flatbread, probably a mix of pea flour and rough milled oats or barley. This is an interesting article on what anglo-saxons might have really eaten and how they cooked them: https://earlybread.wordpress.com/2017/05/13/how-to-make-everyday-anglo-saxon-bread-version-2-hearthcakes-or-kichells/

thank you so much for sharing this!! I was also thinking about the likelihood of honey or fat or milk in the cakes, but much more importantly this was a great read to start my morning. in what feels like several lifetimes ago, i wrote a thesis on this period and while i can still prattle for hours about literacy, handwriting and pottery in anglo-saxon england, i was not interested in food back then and missed the daily-life part entirely. how interesting to see it from another angle. Now I'll be combing through that entire blog tonight!!!

Tereza, I was really glad that Leigh's question sent me off looking, too! The blog has some fascinating info and is still a work in progress so I'm looking forward to more.

This has indeed been a fascinating topic. Who knew there could be so many different ways and definitions for processing oats? Who knew how they would effect baking? I agree with Jane that most of the recipes I ran across are likely modern adaptations of a traditional idea. I don't fault them for that, it's just not what I'm looking for. Especially when my recipe is a flop, lol. I was actually okay with the honey because they did make mead, although foods eaten were largely dictated by social class.

What started this was my summer project of cooking the cuisine of my ancestors. I've been exploring a variety of cultural groups, partly because of an interest in genealogy and history, but also to learn how they combined the foods available to them and how they prepared and preserved them. I am learning a lot!

For example, I found a scholarly  paper by a Russian linguist who analyzed all the Old English words for bread, its ingredients, and its influence on  Anglo-Saxon culture. (The Domain of Bread in the Anglo-Saxon Culture.) One tidbit I learned is that Old English has words for both unleavened and leavened bread, and I found a description of how they made leavened bread.

For me, this all ties back to permaculture under the concept of traditional off-grid skills as part of permanent culture. In other words, learning to do things without having to buy something. Having the Permies community to ask about things like porridge oats is an excellent resource. I love the conversation and I'm learning a lot.

Another interesting article! Random and irrelevant to the oatcakes discussion, but talking of etymology,I noticed that the main Anglo-Saxon word for bread, hlaf, is very similar to the modern Bulgarian word for bread, хляб hlab.

I will try some of the recipes for the poor person's bread, made without wheat, as hubby is wheat-intolerant.

Traditional thick rolled oats and instant oats are both whole grain and both rolled.

The difference is that instant or quick oats are steamed more before rolling, are rolled thinner, and are fragmented so they are ready quickly for the consumer. Even a soak in hot water is adequate. The traditional rolled oats are steamed to soften them for rolling, but not steamed enough to cook them, and of course they are not rolled as thin, and they don't flake apart as much.

I found this on wikipedia:

Rolled oats are a type of lightly processed whole-grain food. They are made from oat groats that have been dehusked and steamed, before being rolled into flat flakes under heavy rollers and then stabilized by being lightly toasted. Thick-rolled oats, or old-fashioned oats, usually remain unbroken during processing. Rolled whole oats, without further processing, can be cooked into a porridge and eaten as oatmeal; when the oats are rolled thinner and steam-cooked more in the factory, these thin-rolled oats often become fragmented but they will later absorb water much more easily and cook faster into a porridge; when processed this way are sometimes marketed as "quick" or "instant" oats.

It is my understanding that part of the problem with using a recipe from a hundred plus years ago is that modern processing produces a uniform grind size while those of yesteryear produced a range and did not sieve it which made it more expensive.  Consequently the wheat flour is added to corn meal and to oat meal to add a different particle size so they will hold together as they bake.  I have never tried it but you might add finely ground oatmeal to the larger size and see if it turns out like it does when wheat flour is added.  I think that is one reason stone ground cornmeal makes a more stable "corn only" cornbread.  One day I'll get ambitious and try it but I've been saying that for at least 10 years now so the odds are against it.