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Dessert

Oatmeal Cakes

A baked cake made with butter, lard, brown sugar, oatmeal, flour, raisins, eggs, buttermilk, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Oatmeal Cakes

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 Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the butter and lard until well combined.

Make and shape the dough

  1. Add the brown sugar, oatmeal, flour, raisins, eggs, buttermilk, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Mix well.

  2. Roll out the dough thinly on a floured surface.

  3. Cut into desired shapes and place on a baking sheet.

Bake

  1. Bake in the preheated oven 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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter and lard
Provides fat that gives the cakes richness and a tender, crumbly texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cakes brown during baking.
Oatmeal
Gives the cakes their chewy body and hearty texture.
Flour
Provides structure so the dough holds its shape when cut.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of the buttermilk to lift the cakes and help browning.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thinly. Dough rolled too thick bakes unevenly, staying doughy in the center while the edges over-brown. A thin, even sheet bakes through at a consistent rate.

“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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