Name: Oatmeal Crackers No. 2
Ingredients: 1 pound rolled oats; 1 cup white flour; 1½ cups cold water; ½ cup sugar; 1½ cups nut meal; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Oatmeal Crackers No. 2

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the flour, rolled oats, and nut meal together.
Add the salt and sugar to the cold water.
Knead the water mixture into the flour mixture, working thoroughly to make a very stiff dough.
Finish the dough as you would for other crackers.

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.

Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Oats + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,169 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Oats + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,548 recipes

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