Name: Oat Meal Crackers
Ingredients: 2 cups sugar; 2 cups lard; 1½ cups raisins, chopped or ground; 4 cups flour; 4 cups oatmeal; 4 eggs; 1 heaping teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 cup hot water

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Oat Meal Crackers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

In a large bowl, mix sugar, lard, raisins, flour, oatmeal, eggs, salt, and baking soda dissolved in hot water.
Let the mixture stand overnight.

Shape and bake

Roll out the dough and cut it into squares.
Bake in a preheated 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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Flour: Provides the structure that holds the dough together as it bakes.
Oatmeal: Adds bulk and a hearty, nutty texture to the crackers.
Eggs: Bind the dough and add richness and structure.
Lard: Adds fat for tenderness and a crisp, flaky bite.
Sugar: Sweetens the dough and promotes browning in the oven.
Baking soda: Reacts with the dough's moisture to lighten its texture and aid browning.

The step that matters

Rolling and cutting the dough. The dough must be rolled to an even thickness so the crackers bake at the same rate. Thick spots stay soft while thin edges can burn before they crisp.

“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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Oat Meal Crackers