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Dessert

Breakfast Gems

A baked oat cake made with rolled oats, sour milk, sugar, baking soda, salt, eggs, and wheat flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Oats and wheat work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 473 recipes. Both carry 2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Breakfast Gems

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.

Prepare

  1. Soak the rolled oats in sour milk overnight.

Mix and bake

  1. Add sugar, baking soda, salt, eggs, and wheat flour to the soaked oats, then mix well and pour into a baking dish.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Oats + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together473 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Oats + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,119 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Rolled oats
Provide the bulk and chewy, hearty texture of the cake.
Sour milk
Softens the oats overnight and adds moisture and tang to the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of sour milk to help the cake rise.
Wheat flour
Adds structure so the batter holds together while baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Soaking the oats overnight. Soaking lets the oats absorb the sour milk and soften, so they blend into the batter instead of staying hard and gritty after baking. Skipping or shortening the soak leaves the texture uneven.

“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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