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Dessert

Spiced Oatmeal Cakes

A baked cake made with rye flour, cooked oatmeal, sugar, raisins, molasses, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Spiced Oatmeal Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Heat the molasses and fat in a saucepan until boiling.

  2. In a large bowl, mix together the rye flour, cooked oatmeal, sugar, raisins, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon.

  3. Pour the hot molasses and fat into the dry ingredients and mix well.

Bake

  1. Spoon the batter into muffin pans.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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

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

  3. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rye + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rye flour
Provides the main structure of the cakes, though with less gluten to hold them firm.
Cooked oatmeal
Adds moisture and a tender, soft crumb to the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture, and helps the cakes brown.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cakes rise.
Baking powder
Provides additional lift so the cakes rise in the oven.
Fat
Adds richness and tenderness, and keeps the crumb moist.

The step that matters

Pour the hot molasses and fat into the dry ingredients and mix well. Mixing until evenly combined distributes the leavening so the cakes rise evenly. Overmixing can develop gluten and make the texture tough, so stir just until no dry streaks remain.

“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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