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Baking

Congress Jumbles

A sweet pastry made from flour, sweet cream, sugar, ammonia, butter or lard, eggs, and flavoring, glazed and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Congress 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

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

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, sweet cream, sugar, ammonia, and butter or lard until well combined.

  3. Add eggs and flavoring extracts, mixing thoroughly.

Shape and glaze

  1. Roll out the dough to the thickness of a silver dollar.

  2. Glaze the top with a beaten egg mixed with a little water.

  3. Press the glazed side into granulated sugar.

Bake

  1. Cut into desired shapes and 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.

  1. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the dough as its proteins and starch set in the oven.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and gives a rich, crumbly texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough, add richness, and help the glaze brown well.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and caramelizes on the surface for a crisp, golden finish.
Ammonia
Releases gas as it heats, helping the jumbles rise and become light.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the dough.

The step that matters

Roll out the dough to the thickness of a silver dollar. Even thickness makes the jumbles bake evenly. Thin spots over-brown and dry out, while thick spots stay doughy in the centre.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream, sugar, butter, 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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