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Dessert

Oatmeal Cookies

A baked cookie made with oats, flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Oatmeal Cookies

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 Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Mix all the dry ingredients together thoroughly.

Make and bake

  1. Add melted butter, almond extract, and the whole egg; stir thoroughly.

  2. Drop small quantities far apart on flat buttered baking sheets.

  3. Bake for 3 to 5 minutes.

  4. Remove from pans while warm.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the cookies stay tender and spread slightly as they bake.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they set.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds moisture and structure to the cookies.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and contributes to chewiness and browning.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cookies rise and become lighter.
Quaker oats
Gives the cookies their oat texture and a chewy, hearty bite.

The step that matters

Bake for 3 to 5 minutes. Baking time is very short, so cookies can go from underbaked to overbaked quickly. Watch closely, since the sugar browns and the edges darken fast at high heat.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, oats, egg, almond, cinnamon, flour):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Blueberryfits less well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, oats, egg, almond, cinnamon, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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