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Baby Food

A simple oat-based baby food made with rolled oats, water, sugar, salt, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Baby Food

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oats

  1. Wash the rolled oats in cold water until the starch is all washed out.

  2. Strain through a fine wire strainer and discard the hulls.

  3. Let the water stand until the starch settles, then drain off all but 1 tablespoon.

Make the porridge

  1. Boil the remaining water with sugar and salt.

  2. Stir the starch and the remaining tablespoon of water into the boiling mixture.

  3. Let it boil for 5 minutes, then pour in the cream and bring to a boil.

Store and serve

  1. Store in a cool place and use as needed.

  2. If too thick, add a little hot water and more cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Oats + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,548 recipes

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

  3. Oats + creamtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together634 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Rolled oats
Washed to remove surface starch, which is then settled and thickens the porridge.
Pure separated cream
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the porridge.

The step that matters

Stir the starch into the boiling water. Starch added to hot liquid clumps quickly unless it is stirred in thoroughly, so stir constantly as the starch goes in to keep the porridge smooth.

“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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