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Dessert

Jumbles

A sweet biscuit made from butter, flour, sugar, eggs, ratafia, almond and nutmeg essences, rolled in caster sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Jumbles

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cream 2 oz. of butter with 8 oz. of flour and mix in 8 oz. of sugar, 1 egg, and 2 teaspoons of ratafia to form a paste.

  3. If the paste is too thick, add a little cream.

  4. Warm 4 oz. of butter and beat it with 4 oz. of caster sugar until frothy. Beat in 1 egg and a few drops each of essence of almonds and essence of nutmeg.

  5. Stir the mixture into 6 oz. of flour and knead lightly.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough into small pieces and form into rings, rolling them in caster sugar.

  2. Place them on a baking sheet, spaced apart, and bake until golden.

  3. Once cooled, store the Jumbles in biscuit tins.

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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
Adds richness and tenderness, giving the biscuits a short, crumbly texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the rings together as they bake.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the rings brown as they bake.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and richness.

The step that matters

Knead the dough lightly after adding flour. Overworking flour develops gluten, making the dough tough and dense rather than tender. Light handling keeps the Jumbles short and crisp.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

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