Recipes you can make with oat flour include coatings for some meat dishes, some types of dessert breads, and other baked goods such as muffins and cookies. Oat flour is often used as an alternative to white flour for its high nutritional quality and lack of gluten. It is normally made from certain types of ground oats such as pinhead oats or groat oats. Many bakers purchase oat flour that has already been ground while others prefer to process their own from raw whole oats. Cooking with oat flour sometimes takes some special considerations for bread recipes in order to arrive at the correct texture.
Different types of oats often have high amounts of fiber, iron and protein, which can give a variety of foods higher nutritional value. Many cooks like to make recipes with oats as part of a healthier eating plan, and they also often like the rich flavor that this kind of flour adds to different dishes. Oat flour is also a gluten-free flour that allows people with gluten sensitivities to still enjoy their favorite recipes that include flour as a main ingredient.
Recipes such as fried chicken or chicken-fried steak can be coated with a batter made from oat flour mixed with spices such as garlic salt or chili powder. Cooks typically dip each piece of meat in a mixture of milk and beaten eggs before coating them with the flour. These recipes are then usually finished by browning the meat in a frying skillet. Desserts such as shortbread and oat muffins are also popular choices because they can be baked with simple ingredients such as brown sugar, vanilla extract, and fruit juice flavors such as orange or apple.
Oat flour can make an easy substitute for baking gluten-free recipes that normally call for refined white flour. Some types of baked goods can be tricky with this type of flour because it can yield a different texture once the recipes come out of the oven. Many bread recipes have instructions for adding small amounts of another flour such as whole wheat in order to get the ingredients to bind together correctly. Bakers who cook with oat flour also find that they need to adjust their measurements of liquid ingredients such as milk, melted butter, or fruit juice. These kinds of adjustments are occasionally needed to keep the finished bread from either becoming too hard in some cases or falling apart in others.