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Dessert

Jackson Jumbles

A sweet baked cookie made with sugar, lard, flour, baking soda, sour cream, eggs, and lemon rind or nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Jackson Jumbles

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and lard.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix the baking soda into the sour cream.

  4. Add the sour cream mixture to the sugar and lard mixture.

  5. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  6. Stir in the grated lemon rind or nutmeg.

  7. Gradually add the flour, mixing until well combined.

Shape and bake

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

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and egg 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

Sugar
Sweetens the dough and, creamed with lard, helps create a tender texture.
Lard
Adds fat that creams with sugar to trap air and keep the cookies tender.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and sets during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream to produce gas that helps the cookies rise.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity, which activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure as they set in the oven.

The step that matters

Adding the flour gradually. Flour develops gluten as it is mixed, so adding it gradually and mixing only until combined keeps the dough from becoming tough, which would make the cookies dense instead of tender.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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