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Dessert

Oatmeal Cookies

A sweet cookie made with oats, coconut, walnuts, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Oatmeal Cookies

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Oatmeal 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the dough

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the shortening and brown sugar.

  3. Add the eggs and mix well.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk and add to the mixture.

  5. Stir in the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, coconut, oatmeal, walnuts, and raisins.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden 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.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Coconut + walnuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Cinnamon + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cinnamon + coconuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together979 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Shortening
Adds fat that keeps the cookies tender and helps creaming trap air for lift.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and promotes browning and a chewy texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to release gas, helping the cookies rise and spread.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cookie as it bakes.
Oatmeal
Adds chewiness and a hearty texture to the cookies.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the sour milk. Baking soda needs an acid to react and produce gas for lift. Dissolving it fully in the sour milk spreads the reaction evenly through the dough, so cookies rise without bitter patches.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, milk, flour, cinnamon, walnut, raisin):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutthe original
  4. Datesfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, flour, cinnamon, walnut, raisin. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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