Name: Albers Oat Cookies
Ingredients: 3 cups Albers Oats; ½ cup butter or shortening; 1 cup brown sugar; 1 cup milk; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1 cup Hygienic Flour; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg; ½ teaspoon ground cloves

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Albers Oat Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

In a bowl, mix the oats, butter or shortening, brown sugar, and milk until well combined.
Add the baking powder, Hygienic Flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Mix until smooth.

Bake

Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto buttered baking pans, spacing them three inches apart.
Bake until the cookies are light 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.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Oats + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,394 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oats: Provide the bulk and chewy texture of the cookies.
Butter or shortening: Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the dough.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown.
Milk: Adds moisture that binds the dough together.
Baking powder: Releases gas that helps the cookies rise and lighten.
Hygienic flour: Provides structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.

Swap the clove

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

Cardamomfits better
Clovethe original
Allspicefits about as well
Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against oats, butter, sugar, milk, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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.