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Dessert

Almond Jumbles

A buttery almond cookie made with sugar, eggs, fruit juice, cornstarch, flour, and topped with blanched almonds and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond 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 ↓

Almond 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. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  3. Beat the egg whites separately.

  4. Stir in the fruit juice and cornstarch.

  5. Gradually add enough flour to form a soft dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough thinly.

  2. Cut with a jumble cutter.

  3. Sprinkle the tops with blanched almonds and granulated sugar.

  4. Press lightly with a rolling pin.

  5. Place on greased baking sheets.

  6. Bake at 350°F (175°C) 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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Peach + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peachtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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
Creamed with sugar to add tenderness and a rich, short texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and, creamed with butter, traps air for a lighter crumb.
Eggs
Egg yolks add richness and help bind the dough together.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the jumbles together once baked.
Cornstarch
Lightens the flour's gluten, keeping the cookies tender and crisp.
Fruit juice
Adds moisture and fruity flavor to the soft dough.

The step that matters

Gradually add enough flour to form a soft dough. Adding too much flour or overworking the dough develops gluten and dries it out, making the jumbles tough. Stop as soon as the dough just holds together.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Peachthe original

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