Sunday evening, before heading upstairs to bed, I set some rolled oats to soak in buttermilk. The next morning while the snow fell (snow! snow! snow!), I dumped the softened, sour-smelling oats into a large bowl, added some salt, baking soda, and a couple cups of bread flour, and kneaded it all together, dribbling in cold milk as needed.

I pressed and patted the dough into a rough rectangle before slicing it into skinny rectangles and popping them into the oven to bake.

The kids were just finishing up their breakfast of granola and/or oatmeal when the oatcakes came out of the oven.

I split them in half (the cakes, not kids) and slathered some with butter and jelly and others with cream cheese. The kids scarfed them down, and the few that were left over didn’t live beyond lunch.

This was the second time I’d made the oatcakes, so I wasn’t surprised by the kids’ enthusiasm. But when I first tried this recipe about a week ago, I was totally taken aback. There is nothing fancy about these oatcakes. There’s no sugar or fat in them (except for the buttermilk), and I thought they might be turned off by the texture—dense and chewy on the inside, craggy and crusty on the outside.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. The kids loved the chewy bread. And that’s when it hit me—these oatcakes were like bagels!

So I pulled out the cream cheese and the kids went wild. We’ve been hooked ever since.

Oatcakes
Adapted from Bernard Clayton’s New Complete Book of Breads

I used full-fat buttermilk. If using low-fat buttermilk or sour milk, you may want to add a couple tablespoons of melted butter to the dough. Or not…

The original recipe called for 2 ½ cups of flour, but I found that my dough was too dry with just 2 cups of flour. This could be because my buttermilk was so thick—with a thinner milk, more flour may be necessary.

I use sea salt. If using table salt, you may want to cut back to 1 ½ teaspoons.

2 cups rolled oats
1 1/4 cups buttermilk or sour milk
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups bread flour
extra milk, as needed

Stir the oats and buttermilk together, cover with plastic wrap, and let rest at room temperature for 6-8 hours or overnight.

Dump the softened oats into a larger bowl and add the salt, soda, and flour. Using one hand, knead it all together, adding dribbles of milk if the dough feels to dry. (It should be soft and slightly sticky.)

Press the dough into a flat disk or rectangle and cut into desired shapes—triangles, circles, squares, rhombuses, whatever—about 12-14 pieces. Place the oatcakes on a greased baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

Split (don’t cut) the fresh cakes in half and top with lots of butter and jelly or cream cheese.

Updated on April 20, 2015: Thanks to a mistake, I made these with 2 cups of oats, 2 cups of yogurt-y milk, 1 teaspoon each of salt and baking soda, and about 1 ½ cups of bread flour. It was easier to mix and turned out delicious.

This same time, years previous: bacon and date scones with Parmesan cheese, dark chocolate cake with coconut milk

*cleaning…maybe
*steaming bowls of breakfast
*spring has sprung, but I’m still not sure I believe it
*haven’t I ever told you they have magic powers? Well, they do.
*or maybe it’s just the season for kicking up heels. Whatever.
*Look, Mom! If I hit the ball hard enough, my head goes flat!
*pruning the red raspberries: I can taste them already
*sweet p’taties, salt, pepper, and olive oil, mmm
*breaking up the chunks
*the sign is just for decoration, clearly
*her latest invention—should we patent it?
*prepping for a job fair: the move is getting ever closer!
*he couldn’t/wouldn’t do his writing assignment so his poppy sat down and did it with (not for) him
*lover boy: the kid is all about physical touch (I’m a little worried about his teenage years)
*evening view from the couch: kitchen clean-up, an under-the-table hideout, and a toasty fire.

This same time, years previous: another fort (and a kid wielding a machete, oh dear), doctors galore, sky-high biscuits, fire-safe, soda crackers

I stuck my head into my daughter’s room. She was lying in bed, bleary-eyed but awake.

“Are you going to bring your radio down so we can listen?” I asked.

“Oh yeah!” she exclaimed, leaping out of bed. “I forgot!”

The buttons stick on the old radio, so I had to jab at them with a blue colored pencil to get to the right station.

Too jittery to sit down and listen with the rest of the family, I walked around the kitchen, dust cloth in hand, swiping at the window sills and picture frames. I avoided their eye contact, too, suddenly overcome with shyness by the too-large sound of my voice. But when the music swelled up under my words, I couldn’t contain the big grin that threatened to split my face. I could totally get used to having back-up music play whenever I talk.

This week’s column was about berry cobbler.

I wrote a letter to Lenore Skenazy and she posted it on her blog!

Some of the comments are quite hilarious (and inspiring). I especially liked it that engineers were dissecting the fort, trying to figure out how they built it.

This same time, years previous: a birth story