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Dessert

Jumbles

A sweet pastry made with sugar, flour, butter, rosewater, and eggs, baked into ring-shaped dough.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Jumbles

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the rosewater.

  4. Gradually mix in the flour until just combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough into strips the thickness of your little finger.

  2. Shape the strips into rings the size of half a dollar.

  3. Place them on a baking tin about an inch apart.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

  5. Allow to cool slightly before icing if desired.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and tenderness to the dough.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and moisture as they set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the rings together as they bake.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown and stay tender.
Rosewater
Adds a floral aroma that defines the flavour of the cookies.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the flour until just combined. Overmixing flour develops gluten, making the jumbles tough and dense instead of tender. Stop once no dry flour streaks remain.

“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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