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Dessert

Oatmeal Drop Cakes

A sweet drop cake made with oatmeal, flour, lard, sugar, and spices, baked until golden.

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

Oatmeal Drop Cakes

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and lard.

  2. Mix in the cinnamon, oatmeal, baking soda, and flour.

  3. Stir in the sour milk, raisins, cloves, and nuts until well combined.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 15-20 minutes or 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Lard
Adds fat that keeps the cakes tender and helps them brown.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the drop cakes together as they bake.
Oatmeal
Adds chewy texture and body to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to lift the cakes as they bake.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cakes and helps them brown as they bake.

The step that matters

Dropping the spoonfuls onto the sheet. The batter is soft and spreads as it bakes, so spacing the spoonfuls apart keeps the cakes from merging and lets heat reach them evenly for even browning.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, flour, milk, raisin, clove):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, flour, milk, raisin, clove. 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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