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Jumbles

Pies and Pastries
Historic

(or Jumbels or Jumbols Jambals, or 'Knot Biscuits')

Cooked shapes such as knots, rings or S-shapes, of rich pastry (eg, flour, butter, sugar and egg) with flavourings such as almonds, lemon, peel or, in the earliest known version, with aniseed. Often coated with sugar ice. Jumbles served with sweet wine such as Sauternes or Madeira were a staple of Georgian card parties.


Bosworth Jumbles
Image: http://www.lavenderandlovage.com



Original Receipt in 'The Arte of Preserving Conserving, Candying &c' by Hugh Plat, 1609 (Plat 1609)

16. To make Jumbolls
Take half a pound of Almonds being beaten to a paste with a short cake being grated, and 2 eggs, 2 ounces of carroway seeds, being beaten, and the juice of a Lemmon: and being brought into paste, roule it into round strings: then cast it into knots, and so bake it in an oven and when they are baked, ice them with Rose-water and Sugar, and the white of an egge being beaten together, then take a feather and gild them, and put them again into the oven, and let them stand in a little while, and they will be iced cleane over with a white ice: and so boxe them up, and you may keep them all the yeare




Original Receipt from 'Countrey Contentments, or, The English Hus-wife' by Gervase Markham, 1615 (Markham 1615)

To make the best Jumbals, take the whites of three Eggs, and beat them well, and take off the froth; then take a little milk and a pound of fine wheat flowre and Sugar together finely sifted, and a few Anniseeds well rub'd and dryed, and then work all together as stiff as you can work it, and so make them in what forms you please, & bake them in a soft oven upon white papers.



Acton 1845 insists they be very slowly baked that. "They should be pale, but perfectly crisp."


Original Receipt in the 'Reform Cookery Book' (4th edition) by Mrs. Mill (Mill 1909)

Jumbles.
1/2-lb. flour, 1/4 lb. butter, 2 ozs. sifted sugar, 1 egg. Pinch baking powder. Beat butter and sugar to a cream, add egg, well beaten, then flour, &c. Knead into a stiff paste, divide into 12 or more pieces, and roll out pipe-wise with the hands, about a foot long. Curl round, or form into letters, &c. Lay on floured oven plate. Brush with egg. Sprinkle with sugar, and bake 15 minutes in hot oven.






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