Skip to main content
Dessert

Oatmeal Pie

A baked pie made from oatmeal, milk, eggs, breadcrumbs, and optional spices, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sage and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Oatmeal Pie

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.

Make the base

  1. In a basin, mix ½ cup cold milk with 2 oz fine oatmeal.

  2. Pour in 1 pint boiling milk and mix thoroughly.

  3. Transfer to a saucepan, add sugar to taste, and boil slowly for 10 minutes.

  4. Stir in 2 oz finely grated breadcrumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. When still warm, add 2 well-whisked eggs and flavoring of choice.

  2. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Sage + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Lemon + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + sagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Onion + marjoramtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set into a firm, sliceable custard when baked.
Oatmeal
Thickens the milk and gives the pie its body and grainy texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the oatmeal swells in and the custard sets from.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, helping the pie hold its shape.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs while the mixture is still warm. If the mixture is too hot, the eggs can scramble; if it has cooled too much, they will not blend in evenly. Whisked eggs blended into a warm base set smoothly when baked.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, egg, lemon, butter, sage, marjoram):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, lemon, butter, sage, marjoram. 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.

More oatmeal pie recipes

Apple 3 See all 2 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes