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Scotch Cakes

A baked oat and wheat flour cake with lard and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Scotch Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine oatmeal, wheat flour, brown sugar, and baking soda.

  2. Add lard and mix until crumbly.

  3. Gradually add water to form a stiff batter.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the batter out rather thin and cut into squares.

  2. Bake in iron pans in a 400°F (200°C) 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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Wheat + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,071 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal
Forms the bulk of the cake and gives it a hearty, slightly grainy texture.
Wheat flour
Adds structure and binds the batter together with the water.
Lard
Adds fat that makes the cakes short and tender when rubbed into the dry ingredients.
Baking soda
Reacts with the mixture to lighten the cakes and aid browning in the oven.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a mild molasses flavour that helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Gradually add water to form a stiff batter. Adding water slowly lets you stop at the right stiffness. Too much water makes the dough sticky and hard to roll thin, while too little leaves it crumbly and unable to hold its shape.

“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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