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Dessert

Oatmeal Cookies

A simple baked cookie made with buttermilk, shortening, sugar, eggs, baking soda, flour, oatmeal, raisins or currants, spices, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Oatmeal Cookies

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 Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately quick oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, stir together the buttermilk, shortening, sugar, eggs, and baking soda until well combined.

  2. Add the flour, raw oatmeal, raisins or currants, spices, and salt. Mix until fully incorporated.

Bake and serve

  1. Drop tablespoonfuls of the mixture onto a greased baking sheet, spacing them three inches apart.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cookies rise.
Shortening
Provides fat that gives the cookies a tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown during baking.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as the cookies set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that leavens the cookies.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.

The step that matters

Spacing the dropped cookies. Cookies spread as the fat melts and the leavening works in the oven. Spacing them three inches apart keeps them from merging into one sheet and lets heat reach each cookie evenly.

“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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