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Dessert

Oatmeal Biscuits

A simple baked biscuit made with oatmeal, flour, butter, sugar, baking powder, salt, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Oatmeal Biscuits

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Oatmeal Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA very moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very moderate 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 bowl, mix the oatmeal, flour, baking powder, and castor sugar together.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan and pour it into the mixture.

  3. Add enough beaten egg to form a stiff paste, adding it gradually.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough to ⅛ inch thickness and cut into squares or rounds.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes until pale fawn and crisp.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Oatmeal
Forms the bulk of the biscuit and gives it a hearty, slightly nutty texture.
Flour
Helps bind the oatmeal so the dough holds its shape when rolled and cut.
Egg
Binds the dough into a stiff paste and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour and helps the biscuits crisp and brown.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough to give the biscuits a light lift.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg gradually. Too much egg at once makes the dough sticky and wet, while too little leaves it crumbly. Adding it bit by bit lets you reach a stiff paste that rolls out cleanly and bakes 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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