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Dessert

Susan's Jumbles

A buttery, nutmeg-flavored cookie made with flour, baking soda, sweet milk, cream of tartar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Susan's Jumbles

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 the butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk and add it to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the grated nutmeg and flour, mixing well.

  5. Sift the cream of tartar with the flour before adding.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough and place it on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake 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.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Creaming with sugar-free fat traps air and gives the dough a tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the dough.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and softness, and carries the dissolved baking soda through the dough.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so the baking soda can react and help it rise.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk before adding it. Baking soda must be fully dissolved so it spreads evenly through the dough. Clumps of soda can leave bitter spots and uneven rising, while even distribution lets the acid in the cream of tartar react uniformly.

“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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