Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Oatmeal Gems
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the batter
Soak the oatmeal in water overnight.
In the morning, add sour milk, flour, Magic Soda, salt, butter, and sugar to the soaked oatmeal.
Mix well and adjust with more flour if the mixture is too moist.
Bake
Bake in a hot oven (400°F or 200°C) in well-buttered gem pans until golden.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Soaking softens the oats and gives the gems a hearty, tender body.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity reacts with the Magic Soda to lift the batter as it bakes.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the gems together once baked.
- Magic soda
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the gems rise and turn light.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness, and greasing the pans helps browning and release.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown to a golden color.
The step that matters
Adjusting the flour. Oats keep absorbing liquid, so a batter that is too wet will spread and bake dense. Add flour only as needed until the batter is thick enough to hold its shape in the pans.
“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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