Name: Oatmeal Bannocks
Ingredients: 1 pound whole meal (Scotch oatmeal); 1½ ounces butter (optional); ½ pint milk (or buttermilk); ¼ teaspoon salt; a pinch of baking soda (optional)

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Oatmeal Bannocks

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

1 pound whole meal (Scotch oatmeal)
1½ ounces butter (optional)
½ pint milk (or buttermilk)
¼ teaspoon salt
a pinch of baking soda (optional)

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 the dough

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the oatmeal with water to form a paste.
If using butter, break it into the meal and mix well.
If using buttermilk, combine it with the meal and add a pinch of baking soda.

Shape and bake

Shape the mixture into cakes about the size of a common saucer and ½ inch thick.
Bake the cakes in the oven for about 20 minutes until light 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.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Whole meal (scotch oatmeal): Forms the base structure of the cakes and absorbs the liquid to make a paste.
Butter: Adds fat for richer flavour and a more tender texture.
Milk or buttermilk: Provides moisture to bind the oatmeal into a shapeable mixture.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in buttermilk to lighten the cakes and aid browning.

“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.