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Dessert

Ring Jumbles

A sweet ring-shaped cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Ring Jumbles

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°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 rose water, mixing well.

  3. Stir in half of the flour, then gently fold in the beaten egg whites and the remaining flour.

Shape and bake

  1. Line a shallow pan with greased paper.

  2. Using a tablespoon, form regular rings with the dough, leaving a hole in the center of each.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden, then sift sugar over them.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Creaming with sugar traps air, giving the cookies a light, tender texture and rich flavor.
Sugar
Creaming with butter adds air and sweetness, and helps the cookies brown in the oven.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and structure, while whipped whites lighten the dough and help it rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the rings together as the dough sets in the oven.
Rose water
Adds a floral aroma and flavor to the cookies.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites hold air that gives lift. Stirring them vigorously or overmixing after adding flour knocks out that air and makes the cookies dense and flat.

“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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