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Baking

Oatmeal Cookies

A baked cookie made with milk, celery, buckwheat bread, oleomargarine, prune butter, and oatmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Oatmeal Cookies

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oatmeal 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

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

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, cream together the oleomargarine and prune butter.

  2. Add the milk and mix well.

  3. Stir in the oatmeal until combined.

Bake

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

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden 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.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Celery + buckwheattop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Milk + buckwheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Oleomargarine
Provides fat that creams with the prune butter and gives the cookies richness and tenderness.
Oatmeal
Forms the bulk of the cookie and gives it a chewy, hearty texture.
Milk
Adds moisture that binds the dough together.
Prune butter
Adds moisture and natural sweetness, and helps the dough brown.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Spoonfuls of soft dough spread as they heat, and the sugars and proteins brown through the Maillard reaction. Pulling them as soon as the edges turn golden keeps the centers soft and prevents dryness.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, buckwheat, bread, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, buckwheat, bread, butter. 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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