Skip to main content
Dessert

Gimblettes

A small ring-shaped pastry made from eggs, sugar, flour, and lemon peel, boiled then baked and glazed with egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Gimblettes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and add the sugar and grated lemon peel.

  2. Mix for a few minutes with a spatula.

  3. Gradually add flour until the paste is malleable, not too stiff or soft.

  4. Roll out the paste and form rings the size of a crown piece.

Boil and dry

  1. Place the rings in a basin of boiling water and remove them as they rise.

  2. Set the rings on a napkin or sieve to drain and dry.

Bake and glaze

  1. Place them on plates or paper to bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C).

  2. Once baked, moisten with egg white and return to the oven to dry, which will make them shine.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Eggs
Provide structure and richness, binding the dough together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the paste its body and shape.
Lemon peel
Adds aroma and a bright citrus flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Too much flour makes the paste stiff and dense, while too little leaves it soft and sticky. Gradual addition lets you judge the texture so the rings hold their shape through boiling and baking.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes