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Dessert

Philadelphia Jumbles

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, almond or rose flavor, rolled and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Philadelphia 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. Cream together the sugar and butter until light.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and flavoring, mixing well.

  3. Gradually incorporate enough flour to form a dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough out on a surface dusted with powdered sugar to a thickness of ¼ inch.

  2. Cut into rings using a jagging iron.

  3. Place on buttered baking tins.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Sugar
Sweetens the dough and, creamed with butter, helps give it a light, tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and creaming it traps air for a light texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add moisture and structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together so it can be rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Gradually incorporate enough flour to form a dough. Adding flour too quickly can leave lumps or make the dough tough and hard to roll. Working it in gradually keeps the dough smooth and evenly textured, which helps the rings bake up 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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