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Dessert

Oatmeal Hermits

A sweet oat-based cookie with raisins, butter, lard, and spices baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Oatmeal Hermits

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, lard, and sugar.

  3. Add the eggs and sweet milk, mixing well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, oatmeal, cinnamon, and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

  6. Fold in the chopped raisins.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough with your hands on a floured surface, then cut into desired shapes.

  2. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden.

Serve

  1. Serve cold.

  2. These are better after a few days.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and helps the cookies spread and turn tender.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the cookies tender and soft in texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the cookies brown as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough to help the cookies rise and brown.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour gradually and stirring only until combined keeps the dough from overmixing. Overworked flour develops gluten, which can make cookies tough and dense.

“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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