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Dessert

Oat Cakes, Scotch

A baked oat cake made with oatmeal, flour, sugar, butter, lard, baking soda, tartaric acid, salt, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Oat Cakes, Scotch

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a warm oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Weigh the flour and oatmeal onto a clean surface.

  2. Sift the baking soda, tartaric acid, and salt onto the flour and oatmeal.

  3. Add the sugar and fat, then rub together until smooth.

  4. Make a well in the center and gradually mix in milk to form a smooth paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Take small pieces of dough (about the size of an egg) and roll them out thin and round using a small rolling pin, dusting the surface with a mix of oatmeal and flour.

  2. Cut the rolled dough into quarters with a sharp knife.

  3. Place the pieces on clean, flat baking sheets.

  4. Bake in a warm oven at 350°F (175°C) for 20 to 25 minutes.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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

Oatmeal
Forms the bulk of the dough and gives the oatcakes their nutty, crisp-textured structure.
All-purpose flour
Adds gluten-based structure so the thin rounds hold together when rolled.
Butter and lard
Adds fat that shortens the dough, tenderising it and producing a crisp, crumbly bite.
Baking soda
Reacts with the tartaric acid to release carbon dioxide, lightening the dough and aiding browning.
Tartaric acid
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with the baking soda, producing lift and a lighter texture.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness and helps the oatcakes brown during baking.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thin and even. Oatcake dough has little gluten, so it cracks easily and must be rolled evenly thin; thick or uneven pieces bake unevenly and stay doughy in the centre while edges burn.

“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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