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Dessert

Oatmeal Biscuits

Oatmeal biscuits are a simple baked treat made with lard or butter, flour, oatmeal, sugar, soda, egg, and water.

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

Why it works: Butter and flour 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Melt 3 ounces of lard or butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. In a bowl, mix 7 ounces of flour, 3 ounces of oatmeal, 3 ounces of castor sugar, and ¼ teaspoon of carbonate of soda.

  3. Stir in the melted lard or butter.

  4. In a cup, combine 1 tablespoon of cold water and 1 beaten egg.

  5. Add the egg mixture to the bowl and mix until smooth.

Shape and bake

  1. Flour a surface and turn the dough out onto it.

  2. Roll out the dough as thin as possible using a floured rolling pin.

  3. Use a floured tumbler to cut the dough into biscuits.

  4. Grease a baking tin with butter and place the biscuits on it.

  5. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  6. Remove the biscuits from the tin and let them cool before serving.

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. Butter + flourtop 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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour 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

Lard or butter
Melted fat that shortens the dough, giving the biscuits a tender, crisp bite.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the dough once bound with the egg and water.
Oatmeal
Adds a slightly grainy texture and nutty flavour to the biscuits.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the biscuits brown during baking.
Carbonate of soda
Reacts with the mix to lighten the dough and help the biscuits rise and spread.
Egg
Binds the dry ingredients together and adds richness and structure.

The step that matters

Roll the dough as thin as possible. Thin dough bakes through evenly and turns crisp rather than soft or cakey. Thick dough stays doughy in the middle and can burn at the edges before it dries out.

“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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