Barley Nut Bread (1918)
Reader ratingsBarley nut bread from a 1918 lunch-room book: a wheatless, yeastless loaf of barley flour, rolled oats and walnuts, raised with baking powder, with no added fat.
- Recipe makes
- 1 loaf, about 1¾ lb, 14 slices
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
The oats soak for 30 minutes and the batter rests 15 minutes in the pan. The book says to keep the loaf eight to twelve hours before cutting, so bake it the day before.
A barley, oat and walnut quick bread, sliced on a board.
The story behind the recipe
No wheat, no yeast and no added fat went into this loaf: barley flour and rolled oats raised with baking powder, sweetened a little and filled with walnuts. Bertha E. Nettleton printed it as the last recipe in her One Hundred-Portion War Time Recipes (1918), where it makes eight loaves of three pounds each.
Two things saved
The ingredient list carries a note in parentheses: “(No fat).” The Food Administration was asking Americans to save fats and sugar as well as wheat and meat, and Nettleton points out the two breads that manage without fat. The other is a rye muffin, which carries the note “This recipe calls for no fat.”
The whole book, written for lunch rooms and canteens, never mentions yeast; every bread in it is a quick bread, raised with baking powder. How Did You Feed a Hundred People Without Wheat in 1918? explains why, and what else a wheatless lunch room served.
The method has one more instruction that sounds strange in a quick bread. After baking, the book says to “keep eight to twelve hours before cutting.” It doesn’t explain why, and we follow it.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
One egg sets the scale here: a fourteenth of the book’s batch, which fills a 9 by 5-inch pan. The pans are left to the cook. We line ours with parchment, which keeps the loaf free of fat and lets it lift out cleanly. The book bakes the bread in a “moderate oven about an hour.” We use 350°F (180°C) and bake until the center reaches about 200°F (95°C).
The barley flour in this loaf contains gluten. For a wheatless pudding to finish the meal, the same book has a Baked Indian Pudding (1918).
Scald milk and pour over oatmeal, let stand one-half hour or more, beat eggs and add, mix and sift dry ingredients, and combine the two mixtures. ...
Recipe makes: 1 loaf, about 1¾ lb, 14 slices
Ingredients
For 1 loaf, about 1¾ lb, 14 slices. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 1 loaf, about 1¾ lb, 14 slices.
Soaked oats
- Milk10 fl oz
- Rolled oats3.5 oz
- Large egg1
Dry ingredients
- Barley flour9 oz
- Baking powder3 1/2 tsp
- Salt1 tsp
- Sugar2.75 oz
- Walnuts, coarsely chopped4.5 oz
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 10 fl oz milk
- 3.5 oz rolled oats
- 1 large egg
- 9 oz barley flour
- 3.5 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 2.75 oz sugar
- 4.5 oz walnuts, coarsely chopped
Equipment
Small saucepan- Two mixing bowls
Sieve- 9 by 5-inch loaf pan
- Parchment paper
Instant-read thermometer
Instructions
Heat the milk in a small saucepan until it steams and small bubbles form at the edge. Put the rolled oats in a mixing bowl, pour the hot milk over them, stir and leave for 30 minutes, until lukewarm and soft.
Line the loaf pan with parchment, leaving an overhang on the long sides. Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Beat the egg and stir it into the soaked oats.
Sift the barley flour, baking powder and salt into a second bowl. Stir in the sugar and walnuts.
Add the dry ingredients to the oat mixture and stir just until there are no dry patches. The batter will be thick.
Spread the batter in the pan and leave it to stand for 15 minutes.
Bake for 55 to 65 minutes, until the loaf is well risen and brown, a skewer in the center comes out clean and the center reaches about 200°F (93°C).
Lift the loaf out by the parchment and cool it on a rack. When it is completely cool, wrap it and keep it for 8 to 12 hours before slicing.
Nutrition
190calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 1 loaf, about 1¾ lb, 14 slices
- Servings
- 14
Estimated per slice (14 to the loaf) from USDA FoodData Central values for the listed ingredients.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
This is one fourteenth of the book’s recipe for eight 3-pound loaves, which makes the eggs exactly one and fills one 9 by 5-inch pan. Bake extra loaves in separate pans.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
Wrapped, the bread keeps for 3 days at room temperature. Contains milk, egg and walnuts. Barley flour contains gluten, so this wheatless bread isn’t gluten-free.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
After Bertha E. Nettleton, One Hundred-Portion War Time Recipes (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1918), Barley Nut Bread
Recipe details
- Course
- Bread & baking
- Dish family
- Breads & Cakes
- Region
- American
- Source decade
- 1910s
- Main ingredient
- Grains & rice
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Occasion
- Rationing