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Dessert

Oatmeal Cookies

Oatmeal cookies made with sugar, shortening, eggs, oatmeal, flour, milk, baking soda, raisins, spices, salt, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Oatmeal Cookies

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Oatmeal Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and shortening.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the dry oatmeal, flour, sweet milk, baking soda, raisins, cinnamon, cloves, salt, and nuts until well combined.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they are beaten in.
Shortening
Creamed with sugar to add fat, tenderness and a soft texture to the cookies.
Sugar
Creamed with shortening for sweetness and browning during baking.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the mixture to help the cookies rise and spread while baking.
Dry oatmeal
Adds chewy body and a hearty texture to the cookies.

The step that matters

Add the eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually lets each one emulsify fully into the creamed sugar and shortening. Dumping them in together can cause the mixture to split and bake up unevenly.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, flour, milk, raisin, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour, milk, raisin, cinnamon, clove. 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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