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Dessert

Turtulongs, Fine, for Breakfast

Turtelongs are boiled dumplings made from butter, sugar, flour, eggs, and salt, then baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Turtulongs, Fine, for Breakfast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix the butter, powdered sugar, flour, eggs, and salt together in a bowl.

  2. Roll the batter into pieces about 4 inches long and as thick as your little finger, forming them into two round rings.

Boil and chill

  1. Bring a preserving pan of clean boiling water to a boil.

  2. Carefully place the rings into the boiling water, not overcrowding the pan.

  3. Once they float to the top, remove them and place them in a bowl of cold water.

  4. Let them sit in the cold water overnight.

  5. The next morning, drain the water and place the turtelongs on a plate without any paper underneath.

Bake

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C) and bake until they rise and turn a fine brown, watching closely to prevent burning.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Adds richness and tenderness to the dough.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the dough together.
Eggs
Bind the dough and help it rise and set during baking.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and promotes browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Watching the bake closely. Sugar browns quickly at high heat, so the turtelongs can scorch on the outside before the inside sets and rises fully. Checking often keeps the color fine brown.

“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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