Name: Jolly Boys
Ingredients: 1 pint rye-meal; 2 tablespoons molasses; 1 cup wheat flour; 2 large eggs; 2 teaspoons baking powder; ½ cup Indian meal or 1 teaspoon cream of tartar; ¼ teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Jolly Boys

Ingredients

Directions

In a large bowl, mix together the rye-meal, wheat flour, Indian meal (or cream of tartar), salt, ground cinnamon, and baking powder.
In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and then add them to the dry ingredients.
Stir in the molasses and mix until well combined.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Rye + wheattop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together404 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Wheat + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together537 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,320 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Rye + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together85 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rye, molasses, wheat, flour, egg, cream):

Nutmegfits about as well
Cinnamonthe original
Turmericfits less well
Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rye, molasses, wheat, flour, egg, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.