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Dessert

Quaker Oat Cakes

A simple oat cake made with Quaker oats, sugar, eggs, butter, baking powder, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Oats and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,532 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Quaker Oat Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the Quaker oats, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a bowl.

  2. Cream the butter in a separate bowl, then add the dry mixture.

  3. Stir well until combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto greased pans, spacing them far apart.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) and watch carefully to prevent burning.

  3. Remove from the pan with a cake lifter while hot, as they become brittle when cold.

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. Oats + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Oats + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Quaker oats
Provide the bulk and chewy structure of the oatcakes.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help hold the oatcakes together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender bite.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the mixture and lightens its texture.

The step that matters

Remove from the pan while hot. Oatcakes firm up and turn brittle as they cool, so lifting them while still warm prevents breaking. Sugar and oats also brown quickly in a slow oven, so watching them closely prevents burning.

“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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