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 ↓
Oat-Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Mix fine sifted oatmeal with 2 gallons of water to form a dough.
Roll out the dough on a floured surface.
Cover the rolled dough with a piece of flannel and let it rise.
Toast and serve
Toast the oat cakes on both sides until crisp, but do not burn them.
Pull the oat cakes open with your fingers to create a honeycomb texture.
Add butter to the inside as desired.
Press the buttered oat cakes back together.
Place the oat cakes before the fire to melt the butter evenly.
Cut the oat cakes across with a knife.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Fine sifted oatmeal
- Forms the dough's main body and gives the oatcakes their structure and earthy flavor.
- Butter
- Added inside the oatcakes to melt in and contribute richness and moisture.
The step that matters
Toast the oat cakes on both sides until crisp, but do not burn them.. Toasting dries the oatmeal and sets its starches, making the cakes crisp. Too much heat scorches the starches and oats, turning them bitter and dark before the centre has dried.
“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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