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Dessert

Oatmeal Lace Cookies

Oatmeal lace cookies are simple baked cookies made with eggs, sugar, butter, oats, salt, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and oats are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,939 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Oatmeal Lace Cookies

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs well.

  3. Add sugar, melted butter, rolled oats, salt, and baking powder, then mix thoroughly.

  4. Let the mixture sit for an hour.

Bake and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto buttered baking sheets, about the size of a hickory nut.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

  3. Allow to cool before serving.

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. Butter + oatstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + oatstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and give the cookies structure as they set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown and crisp as they bake.
Rolled oats
Provide the bulk and chewy texture of the lace cookies.
Baking powder
Lightens the batter slightly so the cookies spread and rise a little.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Cookies spread a lot in the oven, so spoonfuls placed too close can merge. Baking until golden brown ensures the sugar has caramelised for crispness, while pulling them too late makes them bitter.

“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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