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Dessert

Oatmeal Cookies

A simple cookie made from oatmeal, flour, sugar, butter, and leavening, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Oatmeal Cookies

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Oatmeal Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Mix together the oatmeal and flour.

  2. Add the cream of tartar and baking soda, and mix well.

  3. Stir in the granulated sugar, melted butter, and salt.

  4. Add enough water or milk to form a stiff dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough very thin and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Oatmeal
Provides bulk and a chewy, hearty texture in the cookie.
Flour
Gives the dough structure so it holds its shape when rolled and cut.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough, working with baking soda to help it rise and lighten slightly.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the dough to produce gas for lift and aids browning.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown and crisp as they bake.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the finished cookie.

The step that matters

Roll out the dough very thin. Thin dough bakes through and crisps evenly. Thicker dough stays soft in the center and can spread or bake unevenly, so the thickness should stay consistent across all cookies.

“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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