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Oatmeal Gems

A baked oatmeal batter mixed with flour, baking powder, salt, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Oatmeal Gems

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Oatmeal Gems

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Soak 1 cup oatmeal in 1 cup water overnight.

  2. In the morning, sift together 1 cup flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and ¼ teaspoon salt.

  3. Mix the soaked oatmeal with the dry ingredients.

  4. Add sweet milk to form a stiff batter.

Bake

  1. Drop the batter into gem pans and bake immediately.

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 + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Oatmeal
Provides the bulk and chewy body of the gems after soaking.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the gems together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the gems rise and turn light.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture to bind the mixture into a stiff batter.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after dropping the batter. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it meets liquid, so waiting lets the gas escape before the batter sets. Baking right away traps it, helping the gems rise.

“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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