Name: Cinnamon Jumbles
Ingredients: 2 large eggs; 1 pound brown sugar; ¾ pound butter; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 3 tablespoons ground cinnamon; 1 heaping quart all-purpose flour; 1 tablespoon milk

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cinnamon 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.

Prepare the dough

Dissolve the baking soda in the tablespoon of milk.
In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, and flour.

Shape and bake

Take a piece of dough the size of a hickory nut.
Roll the dough in crushed sugar and shape it by catching both ends together.
Place on a baking sheet and bake at 400°F (200°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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs: Bind the dough and add richness and structure as they set.
Baking soda: Reacts with the brown sugar and dough to help the cookies rise and spread.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the baked dough.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the surface brown.
All-purpose flour: Provides the main structure that holds the dough together when baked.

“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.