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Dessert

Jumbles

A simple butter, sugar, egg, flour cookie baked until lightly golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Dissolve baking soda in milk and add to mixture.

  4. Gradually stir in flour until dough forms.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 12–15 minutes or 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cookies a light, tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and, creamed with butter, helps create a light texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the milk and dough to lift the cookies and encourage browning.
Milk
Adds moisture to the dough and helps dissolve the baking soda.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in flour until dough forms. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make cookies tough. Stir just until the flour is combined.

“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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