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Dessert

Fruit Jumbles

A buttery, spiced dough with raisins or candied peel, rolled thin, cut, and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Fruit Jumbles

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate 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 the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the cinnamon, cloves or nutmeg, baking soda, and milk.

  5. Add this mixture to the butter mixture.

  6. Stir in the chopped raisins or candied peel and vanilla extract.

  7. Gradually add flour until the dough is thin enough to roll out.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and sprinkle with sugar.

  2. Cut into shapes with a small cutter.

  3. Place on a baking sheet and bake until golden.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  4. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Clove + vanillatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creates a tender, rich crumb and carries the flavour of the dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown as they bake.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the dough together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough to lift it slightly and encourage browning.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough so it can be rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is thin enough to roll out. Adding flour in small amounts lets you judge the dough's consistency. Too much flour makes the jumbles dry and tough, while too little leaves the dough sticky and hard to cut cleanly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon, milk, raisin, vanilla):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon, milk, raisin, vanilla. 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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