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Dessert

Chocolate Jumbles

A chocolate cookie made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, and grated chocolate.

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

Chocolate 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

  6. Fold in the grated chocolate.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 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
Adds fat and richness, and helps the cookies stay tender.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and moisture to the cookies.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cookies together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the dough to help the cookies rise and brown.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough, reacting with baking soda to aid rising and texture.
Grated chocolate
Adds flavor and melting pockets of chocolate throughout the cookies.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour gradually and mixing only until combined keeps the batter from becoming overworked. Overmixing develops gluten, which can make the cookies tough rather than tender.

“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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