First two batches of bread: Oat bread and barley bread

As you may have already guessed from the title of this post, we made an oat flatbread and a barley flatbread this week! In most parts of the Viking world, bread was a staple of the Viking diet. (In Iceland and Greenland, cereal products such as bread were a rare treat.) There were two meals every day – a morning meal (dagverðr) and an evening meal (náttverðr) – and bread was likely served at both of them. 

If you're used to making bread using all-purpose wheat flour, oat and barley flour can take some getting used to. The texture of these stone ground flours is a bit coarser, and oat flour becomes especially dense and sticky when liquid is added. After a short-lived attempt to grind our own flours using a stone mortar and pestle (in place of Viking Age grinding stones known as a querns), we came to the conclusion that it would take us the entire semester to grind a usable amount of flour, and we opted for commercially available flours. We used buttermilk as a substitute for whey from cheese-making (thought to have been used in Viking Age flatbreads), because buttermilk contains similar bacterial cultures and is more widely available. We used an electric stove element on low heat as our heat source as space restrictions and local fire codes did not allow for us to build and maintain a cooking fire. 

The recipe we used was based on a few of different Viking flatbread recipes we found online made by historical reenactment groups and Scandinavian bread-enthusiasts. The recipes we borrowed the most heavily from were A Modern Recipe for Viking-Era Flatbread by William R. Short of Hurstwic.org, and Small Flatbreads by Skandinav i Florida. 

Flatbread Ingredients

Oat Flatbread Recipe:

1 cup oat flour

1/3 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 tbsp butter

1 tbsp honey

A pinch of coarse sea salt 

Before starting, heat a cast iron pan on medium-low heat on a stove (or over embers of a fire).

Add oat flour to the bowl.

Combine oat flour with rolled oats and sea salt.

Mix melted butter, buttermilk, and honey.

Add wet ingredients into dry.

Mix all ingredients.

Form dough into balls...

...then flatten balls into circles.

Place on hot cast iron pan.

Cook both sides on low heat until brown.

For best results, eat while still warm.

Try serving with butter and honey! 

Barley Flatbread Recipe:

The barley flatbread recipe we used was very similar to the oat flatbread. The only differences are that we used barley flour instead of oat flour (obviously!), and we omitted the rolled oats. 

1 cup barley flour

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 tbsp butter

1 tbsp honey

A pinch of coarse sea salt

Barley flatbread dry ingredients.

Adding the wet ingredients.

Mix into a firm dough.

Form dough into balls.

Flatten into circles and cook in a cast iron pan.

Ready to eat!

We enjoyed the taste and texture of the oat flatbreads better than the barley flatbreads. The oat breads reminded us of biscuits or scones and they were really quite nice with butter and honey. The barley flatbreads were a finer in texture, but they reminded us of hard, dry pancakes. We also thought the barley flatbread tasted saltier than the oat flatbread, even though they used the same amount of salt. They might have been more enjoyable with a bowl of hot stew to hydrate them a little. Perhaps that was how the Vikings preferred them. 

-Jennifer