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Dessert

Jumbles

A sweet cookie made with sugar, eggs, milk, butter, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and flavored with nutmeg or lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the cream of tartar into the sweet milk.

  2. Add the sugar, eggs, and butter, then mix well.

  3. Gradually add enough flour to form a dough that can be rolled out.

  4. Before cutting out shapes, sift powdered sugar over the dough.

Bake

  1. 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cream of tartar
Reacts with baking soda to help the cookies rise and gives a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the dough.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Eggs
Add structure and binding so the dough holds its shape.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown.

The step that matters

Adding the flour gradually. Flour is added in stages so the dough reaches a rollable consistency without becoming tough. Gluten develops with overworking, so stopping once the dough holds together keeps the cookies tender.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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