After watching this video some years ago, I finally got around to trying to recreate some oatmeal blocks from the British WWII 24 Hour Ration pack, but I've run into some issues with it. Since the instructions are rather vague and are written within the context of someone living in the UK with access to grocery products they have over there, I wasn't able to get dry bars of oatmeal as an end result.
I'm curious if anyone has tried this recipe before and had success making it. I tried making two batches and both times, the oatmeal was far too watery after baking, I'm assuming the baking time is supposed to be quite a bit longer than what I tried, but since there are no cooking time instructions provided, I didn't have any expectations of how long it would take.
Initially, I misread the instructions and mixed all the ingredients together using dry oatmeal, however, the pre-cooked part jumped at me before I started loading oatmeal into the baking tray, and I cooked the whole lot, sugar and all on the stove.
Since it's next to impossible to buy food-grade hydrogenated coconut oil in the US, I had to make do with non-hydrogenated which melts at a much lower temperature. I tried using 1:1 substituting it for the hydrogenated coconut oil and ended up with a lake of oil on each block, in the second batch I cut it down to an 1/8th or less, which made a difference but wasn't the full solution to my problem.
Reproducing WWII British 24 Hour Ration Oatmeal Blocks
British 24 Hour Ration Oatmeal
What kind of Oats did you use?
I’m betting “pre-cooked rolled oats” is a mis-translation along the way, somewhere. Try “Old Fashioned” rolled oats.
I’m betting “pre-cooked rolled oats” is a mis-translation along the way, somewhere. Try “Old Fashioned” rolled oats.
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MrFahrenheit
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- Location: Whitehaven, Cumbria, UK
Re: Reproducing WWII British 24 Hour Ration Oatmeal Blocks
I can see where your confusion is with the oats, pre cooked rolled oats here in the UK at least means quick oats, or instant oats.
(The stuff you add water or milk to and mix to make porridge like Quaker instant oats) rather than just plain rolled oats.
Although do be aware that there is also variants which have milk powder and sugar already in them, those probably arnt what you want.
The recipe looks very like an traditional british flapjack, I'm guessing the coconut oil and syrup is used to bind the oats instead of butter thats traditionally used in Flapjack.
Using instant cooked oats would make sense if you want a product that makes instant oats when waters added back to it.
Newer versions of the oatmeal block use wheat flour and are actually more like an oatcake, so thats not what were after so Ill guess its the flapjack recipe we want.
So an British traditional flapjack comprises of
250g jumbo porridge oats
125g butter, plus extra for the tin
125g light brown sugar
2-3 tbsp golden syrup (depending on how gooey you want it)
Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Put the oats, butter, sugar and golden syrup in a food processor and pulse until mixed – be careful not to overmix or the oats may lose their texture.
lightly butter a 20 x 20cm baking tin and add the mixture. Press into the corners with the back of a spoon so the mixture is flat and score into 12 squares. Bake for around 15 mins until golden brown.
So quite a similar recipe and very similar ratios apart from the syrup which seems about halved, that makes sense as Flapjack is quite soft and fairly crumbly/chewy.
As we are wanting to be able to add water or milk at a later point to make it back into instant porridge, we use a lot less syrup and the coconut oil instead of butter to make it last longer and act as an preservative, also it sounds like it should be cooked at a lower and longer temp to dry it out rather than totally bake it since there's also very little colour to it, although im guessing at least we want the sugars to melt to help bind it but not to caramelize too much.
So I would take all your ingredients as in the original recipe using instant oats and mix them until you have a kind of dough thats not too dry or sticky but is moldable in the hand without it sticking to your hand, (think cookie dough texture or a bit drier), and place them into an grease proof paper lined mould or tray and compress them as much as possible while still holding the desired shape.
I say a lined tray as using more oil to grease the pan will defeat trying to dry them out, then bake at 140-150c for around 25- 40 minutes or until they seem dried out and hard, I would keep an eye on them after 25 mins to make sure they arnt burning or colouring too much, lower the temp after a while I guess if needed and cook longer until dried and are solid.
(The stuff you add water or milk to and mix to make porridge like Quaker instant oats) rather than just plain rolled oats.
Although do be aware that there is also variants which have milk powder and sugar already in them, those probably arnt what you want.
The recipe looks very like an traditional british flapjack, I'm guessing the coconut oil and syrup is used to bind the oats instead of butter thats traditionally used in Flapjack.
Using instant cooked oats would make sense if you want a product that makes instant oats when waters added back to it.
Newer versions of the oatmeal block use wheat flour and are actually more like an oatcake, so thats not what were after so Ill guess its the flapjack recipe we want.
So an British traditional flapjack comprises of
250g jumbo porridge oats
125g butter, plus extra for the tin
125g light brown sugar
2-3 tbsp golden syrup (depending on how gooey you want it)
Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Put the oats, butter, sugar and golden syrup in a food processor and pulse until mixed – be careful not to overmix or the oats may lose their texture.
lightly butter a 20 x 20cm baking tin and add the mixture. Press into the corners with the back of a spoon so the mixture is flat and score into 12 squares. Bake for around 15 mins until golden brown.
So quite a similar recipe and very similar ratios apart from the syrup which seems about halved, that makes sense as Flapjack is quite soft and fairly crumbly/chewy.
As we are wanting to be able to add water or milk at a later point to make it back into instant porridge, we use a lot less syrup and the coconut oil instead of butter to make it last longer and act as an preservative, also it sounds like it should be cooked at a lower and longer temp to dry it out rather than totally bake it since there's also very little colour to it, although im guessing at least we want the sugars to melt to help bind it but not to caramelize too much.
So I would take all your ingredients as in the original recipe using instant oats and mix them until you have a kind of dough thats not too dry or sticky but is moldable in the hand without it sticking to your hand, (think cookie dough texture or a bit drier), and place them into an grease proof paper lined mould or tray and compress them as much as possible while still holding the desired shape.
I say a lined tray as using more oil to grease the pan will defeat trying to dry them out, then bake at 140-150c for around 25- 40 minutes or until they seem dried out and hard, I would keep an eye on them after 25 mins to make sure they arnt burning or colouring too much, lower the temp after a while I guess if needed and cook longer until dried and are solid.
I came, I saw, I ate some rations then fell asleep amongst the clover.
Re: Reproducing WWII British 24 Hour Ration Oatmeal Blocks
Hence and why the living history repro of the foot of the 24-hour pack uses the Quaker porridge to go blocks as a replacement
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MrFahrenheit
- Posts: 126
- Joined: Thu Jun 18, 2009 5:38 pm
- eBay name: Nomad2k3
- Location: Whitehaven, Cumbria, UK
Re: Reproducing WWII British 24 Hour Ration Oatmeal Blocks
I didn't even know they were a thing, but yeah they actually pretty much just look like flapjack, do they recombine into porridge if you add water?
I came, I saw, I ate some rations then fell asleep amongst the clover.