Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Rolled Oats Cookies
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the dough
Mix rolled oats, butter, and lard in a bowl and let stand for one hour.
Add eggs, granulated sugar, salt, cinnamon, cloves, baking soda, nuts, raisins, flour, and buttermilk to the mixture.
Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto a baking sheet.
Bake
Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until golden.
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.
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Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,390 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Oats + cinnamontop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,394 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Clove + raisintop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,070 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Nuts + raisintop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together490 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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 texture of the cookie.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, contributing to flavor and a tender bite.
- Lard
- Adds fat that helps keep the cookies tender and short.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure and moisture.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in buttermilk to lift the cookies and aid browning.
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oats, butter, egg, sugar, cinnamon, clove, raisin):
- Almondfits better
- Pecansfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against oats, butter, egg, sugar, cinnamon, clove, raisin. 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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