Skip to main content
Breakfast

Oat Elakes

A porridge made by boiling oat flakes in salted water, served with cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Oat Elakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a double saucepan, bring 1 quart of water to a boil.

  2. Add ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt.

Cook

  1. Gradually stir in 3 ounces of oat flakes.

  2. Keep stirring to prevent burning.

  3. Boil for 15 to 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with cream and sugar.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Oat flakes
Swell and thicken in the water to form the porridge's body and texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the finished porridge.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the plain oat flavor.

The step that matters

Keep stirring while the oats go in. Oat flakes settle and scorch on the bottom of the pan if left unstirred, which gives a burnt taste and uneven texture. Constant stirring keeps them dispersed and helps the starch release evenly for a smooth porridge.

“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.

You might also like

Rice GruelRice Gruel28 recipesPeptoned Milk GruelPeptoned Milk Gruel9 recipes