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Dessert

Oatmeal Hermits

A baked oatmeal cookie with sugar, butter, eggs, milk, flour, oatmeal, nuts, raisins, vanilla, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Oatmeal Hermits

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Stir in the milk, baking soda, flour, and oatmeal.

  4. Add the vanilla and the chopped fruit and nuts, dredged in a little flour.

Bake

  1. Drop teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto the bottom of an inverted pan.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Raisin + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together782 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cookies a tender, rich texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add moisture and structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Oatmeal
Adds chewy texture and a toasty, hearty bite to the cookies.
Baking soda
Reacts to lift the dough slightly and encourage gentle spreading and browning.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, helps give a tender crumb and browning.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, meat, vanilla):

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Blueberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, meat, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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