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Dessert

Fruit Jumbles

A sweet pastry made with butter, coffee sugar, flour, milk, eggs, nutmeg, baking powder, and currants or raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fruit 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. In a large bowl, mix the butter and coffee sugar until well combined.

  2. Add the flour, milk, eggs, nutmeg, baking powder, and currants or raisins. Stir until combined.

  3. Add a little more flour to keep the mixture very soft.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough out and shape as desired.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

Serve

  1. For serving, top with water, a little sugar, and chopped scalded almonds.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar and adds richness and tenderness to the dough.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once it is mixed in.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the pastry rises and becomes lighter.
Milk
Adds moisture to the dough and helps it come together.
Currants or sultana raisins
Add sweetness and pockets of fruit flavour through the pastry.

The step that matters

Keep the dough very soft. Flour absorbs liquid and firms the dough, so adding too much makes the pastry dense and tough. Stopping when the dough is still soft keeps the texture light.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, coffee, sugar, flour, milk, egg, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, coffee, sugar, flour, milk, egg, nutmeg. 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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