Name: Soft Jumbles
Ingredients: 1 pint sugar; ½ pound butter; 4 cups flour; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1½ cups sweet milk; 1 nutmeg, grated; 2 teaspoons cream of tartar; 4 eggs

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Soft Jumbles

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs one at a time.
Add the sweet milk, grated nutmeg, and flour. Mix in the baking soda and cream of tartar.

Bake

Roll the dough into small balls and place on a baking sheet. Bake 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 fat and richness, contributing to a tender crumb and flavor.
Eggs: Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Flour: Provides the main structure that sets the cookie as it bakes.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar and helps the cookies rise and spread.
Cream of tartar: Provides acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the dough.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.

Swap the nutmeg

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

Nutmegthe original
Cinnamonfits about as well
Capersfits less well
Jalapenofits less well

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