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Dessert

Oatmeal Crackers

Oatmeal crackers are a simple baked snack made with oatmeal, flour, sugar, butter, baking soda, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Oatmeal Crackers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Dissolve baking soda in a little hot water.

  2. Mix oatmeal, sugar, flour, hot water, melted butter, dissolved baking soda, and salt until well combined.

  3. Roll dough very thin on floured surface.

Shape and bake

  1. Sprinkle with sugar.

  2. Cut into rounds.

  3. Place on baking sheet.

  4. Bake at 400°F 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Fine oatmeal
Forms the bulk of the cracker and gives them a hearty, slightly nutty texture.
Flour
Provides structure so the thin dough holds together when rolled and cut.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and helps the crackers brown.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough to lighten it and promote browning in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface turn golden as it bakes.

The step that matters

Roll dough very thin. Thin dough dries and crisps quickly in the oven. Thick pieces stay soft in the centre and may not bake through, so an even, very thin roll matters for a crisp cracker.

“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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