Skip to main content
Main

Oatmeal Biscuits

A baked biscuit made with flour, oatmeal, sugar, baking soda, egg, water, and lard or butter.

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

Why it works: Flour and butter 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. In a bowl, mix the flour, oatmeal, sugar, and baking soda.

  2. Beat the egg with the cold water.

  3. Melt the lard or butter and combine it with the dry mixture and the egg mixture to form a lump.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough on a floured surface until thin.

  2. Cut into rounds using a floured tumbler or cutter.

  3. Bake on a greased baking sheet for 20 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.

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. Flour + buttertop 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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the biscuits together as they bake.
Oatmeal
Adds a tender, slightly crumbly texture and a nutty flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the biscuits brown as they bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough's acidity to help it rise and lighten slightly.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds richness and structure.
Lard or butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, keeping the biscuits short and crisp.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thin. Thin dough bakes evenly and crisps through, while thick dough stays soft in the middle. Rolling evenly also gives the biscuits a uniform bake.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes