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Dessert

Oatmeal Crackers

A baked cracker made from oatmeal, flour, lard, sugar, baking powder, salt, egg, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Oatmeal Crackers

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

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

  1. Mix the oatmeal, flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder in a bowl.

  2. Melt the lard and mix in the beaten egg.

  3. Combine the lard mixture with the dry ingredients, adding cold water to form a stiff paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the paste to about ¼ inch thick and cut into small cakes.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the crackers together.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and a crisp, short texture.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds richness to hold the paste together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven to lighten the crackers.
Oatmeal
Adds bulk, nutty flavor, and a hearty texture.

The step that matters

Adding the cold water. Too much water makes the paste sticky and tough, while too little leaves it crumbly and hard to roll. Add it gradually until the paste is stiff but holds together.

“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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