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Dessert

Oatmeal Crackers

A baked cracker made from oatmeal, flour, butter, sugar, salt, and baking soda.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Mix the oatmeal, flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Melt the butter, then add the hot water and baking soda.

  3. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and mix well.

Bake

  1. Roll the dough very thin and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

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.

  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. Butter + sugartop 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

Oatmeal
Provides the grainy body and toasty flavour that give the crackers their character.
White flour
Forms the main structure so the dough can be rolled and holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the dough and helps it crisp and brown.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the oven.
Baking soda
Raises the dough's pH, which promotes browning and a crisper texture.
Hot water
Supplies moisture that hydrates the flour and oats and binds the dough.

The step that matters

Roll the dough very thin. Thin dough dries out quickly and bakes evenly into a crisp cracker. Thick pieces stay soft and bake unevenly, so they may not crisp through.

“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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