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Dessert

Martin Jumbles

A sweet, cinnamon-flavored ring-shaped pastry made with flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and brandy, baked until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Martin 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. Sift 1 teaspoon of baking soda into the flour in a large bowl.

  2. Add the brown sugar, softened butter, ground cinnamon, and 4 egg yolks.

  3. Mix in the brandy until well combined.

Shape the rings

  1. Roll pieces of dough into balls, then coat in fine sugar and shape into rings.

  2. Place the rings on a baking sheet, leaving space between them.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until light brown.

  2. Let cool slightly, then carefully remove with a knife.

  3. Clean the baking sheet between batches; do not grease or flour it.

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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the rings together as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the dough rich and tender.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the rings brown in the oven.
Eggs
Yolks bind the dough and add richness and colour.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the dough.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm spice aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Bake until light brown. Browning comes from sugar caramelising and the Maillard reaction. Underbaked rings stay soft and pale, while overbaked ones turn dry and bitter.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

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