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Dessert

Cocoanut Jumbles

A sweet baked treat made with coconut, butter, sugar, flour, eggs, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cocoanut 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Gradually add the sifted flour and beaten eggs, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the rose water and grated coconut to form a stiff dough.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 5 to 10 minutes, or 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. Coconut + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Coconut + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,315 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
Adds richness and tenderness through fat that is creamed with the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps browning, while creaming with butter traps air.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and moisture.
Grated coconut
Adds chewy texture and coconut flavour to the dough.

The step that matters

Bake for 5 to 10 minutes, or until lightly golden. These small drops bake quickly, and overbaking dries them out and makes them hard. Pulling them when the edges are just golden keeps them tender.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, rose. 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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