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Dessert

Oatmeal Cookies

A baked cookie made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, oatmeal, raisins, cinnamon, baking soda, milk, and hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Oatmeal Cookies

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 Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the eggs and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, oatmeal, raisins, and cinnamon.

  5. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water and add to the mixture.

  6. Combine all ingredients and mix until a stiff batter forms.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a greased baking pan, leaving space between cookies.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cookies tenderness and flavour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to help the cookies rise and spread, and aids browning.
Swansdown flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Oatmeal
Adds chewy texture and body to the dough.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown as they bake.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in hot water. Baking soda needs moisture and heat to react and leaven the dough. If it is not fully dissolved, it can leave pockets of bitter, unevenly risen spots in the cookies.

“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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