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Dessert

Gimblettes

A sweet pastry made from eggs, sugar, flour, and lemon peel, formed into rings, boiled, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 lemon peel.

  2. Mix with a spatula for a few minutes.

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

  4. Roll out the dough and form rings about the size of a coin.

Boil and bake

  1. Boil water in a basin and place the rings in it; remove them as they rise to the surface.

  2. Drain the rings on a napkin or sieve.

  3. Place them on a baking sheet and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C).

  4. Once baked, moisten with egg white and return to the oven to dry and 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
Bind the dough and add richness and structure as they set in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the rings brown lightly during baking.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and lets it be shaped into rings.
Lemon peel
Adds fragrant citrus aroma to the dough.

The step that matters

Boiling the rings before baking. Briefly boiling the rings gelatinises their starch on the surface, which helps them hold their shape and dry to a glossy finish. Removing them as they float keeps them from overcooking.

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.

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