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Dessert

Oatmeal Gems

A baked oat cake made with rolled oats, sour milk, molasses, wheat flour, eggs, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Oatmeal Gems

Why it works: Oats and wheat work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 473 recipes. Both carry 2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Oatmeal Gems

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Soak the rolled oats overnight in sour milk.

  2. In the morning, add molasses, baking soda, salt, wheat flour, and eggs, then mix thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into gem pans.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 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. Oats + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together473 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Oats + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,119 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Rolled oats
Provide bulk and a hearty, chewy texture in the batter.
Sour milk
Softens the oats overnight and reacts with baking soda to help the gems rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and contributes to browning.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Wheat flour
Provides gluten and starch that give the gems structure as they set.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.

The step that matters

Mix thoroughly before pouring. Even mixing spreads the baking soda evenly through the acidic batter, so the gems rise uniformly rather than in patches or with dense spots.

“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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