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Dessert

Jumbles III

A sweet cookie made from powdered sugar, butter, eggs, vinegar, baking soda, nutmeg, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Jumbles III

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 the dough

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the powdered sugar and butter.

  3. Add the eggs, vinegar, baking soda, and nutmeg; mix well.

  4. Gradually add flour until the dough is firm enough to roll.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Sprinkle sugar over the shapes and place on a baking sheet.

  3. Bake until lightly golden.

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. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and creates a tender, fine-textured crumb.
Butter
Provides fat for richness and a tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the vinegar to lighten the dough and help it spread and brown.
Vinegar
Reacts with the baking soda to produce gas for lift.
Flour
Provides the structure that makes the dough firm enough to roll and cut.

The step that matters

Add flour gradually until the dough is firm enough to roll. Too much flour makes the cookies dry and tough, while too little leaves the dough too soft to cut cleanly. Adding it gradually lets you stop at the right consistency.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, vinegar, flour. 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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