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Dessert

Oatmeal Cookies

A baked cookie made with butter, brown sugar, molasses, eggs, oatmeal, pecans, raisins, currants, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Oatmeal Cookies

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; 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 400°F (200°C).

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

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in boiling water and add it to the mixture.

  5. Stir in the oatmeal, pecans, raisins, currants, spices, and salt.

  6. Add enough flour to form a stiff dough.

Bake

  1. Drop small portions of the dough onto a greased baking sheet, spacing them far apart.

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or 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.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + pecanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,416 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to give the cookies richness and a tender crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown and stay soft.
Molasses
Adds depth, moisture and a deep caramel flavour while helping the cookies brown.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as they set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to lift the cookies and help them spread and brown.
Oatmeal
Gives the cookies chewy body and a hearty texture.

The step that matters

Spacing the dough portions. Cookies spread as they bake, so portions placed too close will merge. Leaving generous space lets each cookie spread evenly and brown properly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, molasses, egg, pecans, raisin, flour):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, egg, pecans, raisin, flour. 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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