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Dessert

Chocolate Jumbles

Chocolate Jumbles are chocolate cookies made with sugar, sweet cream, butter, grated chocolate, baking soda, cream of tartar, egg, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chocolate Jumbles

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar, sweet cream, and butter.

  3. Add the grated chocolate, baking soda dissolved in cream, cream of tartar, and egg. Mix well.

  4. Gradually add flour until the mixture is very stiff.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Place on a baking sheet and bake until lightly 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Butter
Adds fat that makes the dough rich and tender when creamed with sugar.
White sugar
Creamed with butter, it sweetens the dough and helps give a crisp, tender texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to lift the dough and promote browning.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid with baking soda, helping the cookies rise and brown.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and richness to the dough.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the mixture is very stiff. Adding too much flour makes the dough dry and tough, while too little leaves it sticky and hard to roll. Adding it gradually lets you stop once the dough is stiff enough to roll thin and cut cleanly.

“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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