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Dessert

Jolly Boys

A fried dough made with rye meal, wheat flour, molasses, eggs, and spices, served hot with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Jolly Boys

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix together the rye meal, wheat flour, Indian meal (or cream of tartar), salt, cinnamon, and baking powder.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and add them to the dry mixture along with the molasses.

  3. Add enough cold water to create a batter.

  4. If using baking soda, dissolve it in a spoonful of boiling water and mix it into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a pot to a depth of 3 inches until boiling.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of batter into the hot lard.

  3. Fry until golden brown, then remove with a skimmer and drain on paper.

  4. Serve hot with hard sauce or other sweet sauce.

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.

  1. Rye + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Wheat + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together537 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rye + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. 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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness and structure as they set in the hot fat.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the fried pieces puff and turn light.
Rye meal
Provides the main body and a hearty, earthy flavor to the batter.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten-based structure so the batter holds its shape while frying.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep flavor, and moisture to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and adds lift and browning to the fried batter.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard. The lard must be at a steady boil before the batter goes in. If it is too cool, the batter absorbs fat and turns greasy; if too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks through.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Turmericfits less well
  4. 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.

“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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