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Dessert

Oatmeal Crisps

A sweet biscuit made with butter, lard, sugar, flour, baking soda, coconut, almonds, raisins, rolled oats, and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 Crisps

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the dough

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

  2. Add the egg and sour milk, mixing well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking soda.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

  5. Stir in the coconut, chopped almonds, raisins, and rolled oats.

Bake

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

  2. Bake until golden brown, about 15-20 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.

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

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

  3. Coconut + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

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

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the crisps a tender texture and flavor.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the crisps tender and short in texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the crisps brown during baking.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to lift the dough and help it spread.
Rolled oats
Add chewy texture and a nutty, toasted flavor to the crisps.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour in stages keeps the dough evenly mixed and prevents overworking, which would toughen the crisps.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutthe original
  4. Peachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, milk, almond, raisin. 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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