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Dessert

Oatmeal Cookies

A sweet cookie made with sugar, lard, butter, eggs, flour, baking powder, milk, baking soda, cinnamon, and rolled oats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Oatmeal Cookies

Why it works: Cinnamon and oats are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,394 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Oatmeal Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, lard, and butter until well combined.

  2. Add the eggs and mix until smooth.

  3. Stir in the flour, baking powder, milk, baking soda, cinnamon, and rolled oats in the order given.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin and cut with a cookie cutter.

  2. Place the cookies on a baking sheet and bake until crisp.

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. Cinnamon + oatstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,394 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the cookies brown and crisp as they bake.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the cookies and keeps the texture short.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, helping the cookies spread and brown.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cookies together.
Rolled oats
Add chewy texture and a toasty, nutty flavor to the cookies.

The step that matters

Stir in the dry ingredients in the order given. Adding the leavening agents, flour and oats in sequence keeps the dough evenly mixed, so the baking powder and baking soda distribute and rise uniformly rather than leaving dense or uneven 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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