Skip to main content
Dessert

Oatmeal Cookies

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Oatmeal Cookies

Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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

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

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the granulated sugar, lard, and butter.

  2. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  3. Stir in the sour milk, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and rolled oats.

  4. Gradually mix in the flour and raisins.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto a well-greased baking sheet, leaving space for spreading.

  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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + oatstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,394 recipes

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Oats + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together309 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar
Sweetens the dough and, creamed with fat, helps give the cookies a tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure while helping hold the cookies together.
Lard and butter
Fat that adds tenderness and richness and helps the cookies spread in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the cookies and aids browning.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and a slight tang.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cookies bake.

The step that matters

Leaving space for spreading. Dough drops spread as the fat melts and the baking soda lifts them in the oven. Crowded spoonfuls can merge and bake unevenly, so spacing them lets each cookie set on its own.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, raisin, milk, cinnamon, oats. 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.

More oatmeal cookies recipes

Date 3 See all 164 →

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes