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Dessert

Oatmeal Fruit Bars

A baked oatmeal bar with raisins and whole wheat flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 Fruit Bars

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

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

Make and shape the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix oatmeal, melted butter, whole wheat flour, seeded raisins, sugar, salt, and baking soda dissolved in a little water.

  2. Add cold water gradually to form a stiff dough.

  3. Roll out the dough as thin as possible and cut it into long bars.

Bake

  1. Place the bars on greased baking sheets and bake for 15-20 minutes or 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.

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Butter + wheattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

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

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

Oatmeal
Provides bulk and a hearty, chewy texture in the dough.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, helping the bars brown.
Whole wheat flour
Forms the structure of the stiff dough that holds the bars together.
Seeded raisins
Adds moisture and sweetness, along with chewy pockets of fruit.
Sugar
Sweetens the bars and promotes browning in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough to lighten it slightly and aid browning.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thin. Thin bars bake through and crisp evenly. Thick dough stays soft in the center while the edges over-brown, so the thickness should be kept as even and thin as possible.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, wheat, flour, sugar):

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, wheat, flour, sugar. 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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