Name: Nut Jumbles
Ingredients: ½ pound sugar; ½ pound butter; 3 eggs; ½ pound chopped almonds (or coconut); a little lemon juice; ¾ pound all-purpose flour; rose water or orange flower water for flavoring

Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Nut 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the chopped almonds and lemon juice.
Gradually fold in the flour until just combined.
Add rose water or orange flower water to taste.

Bake

Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking sheet.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until lightly 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.

Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,655 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,465 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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: Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the jumbles a light, tender texture and rich flavor.
Eggs: Add structure and richness, binding the dough and helping it set as it bakes.
All-purpose flour: Provides the main structure that holds the jumbles together while baking.
Chopped almonds: Add texture and nutty flavor to the cookies.
Sugar: Sweetens the dough and helps it brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Fold in the flour until just combined. Overmixing flour develops gluten, which can make the jumbles tough and dense instead of tender.

Swap the lemon

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

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits about as well
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, almond, flour, rose. 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.