Jumbles are simple
butter cookies
Butter cookies (or butter biscuits), also known as Danish biscuits, are cookies originating in Denmark consisting of butter, flour, and sugar. They are similar to shortbread cookies.
The butter cookie is often categorized as a "crisp cookie" du ...
made with a basic recipe of
flour
Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many culture ...
, sugar,
eggs
Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...
, and
butter
Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condiment ...
. They can be flavored with
vanilla
Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia'').
Pollination is required to make the p ...
,
anise
Anise (; '), also called aniseed or rarely anix is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae native to Eurasia.
The flavor and aroma of its seeds have similarities with some other spices and herbs, such as star anise, fennel, licorice, and ta ...
, or
caraway
Caraway, also known as meridian fennel and Persian cumin (''Carum carvi''), is a biennial plant in the family Apiaceae, native to western Asia, Europe, and North Africa.
Etymology
The etymology of "caraway" is unclear. Caraway has been ...
seed used for flavoring, or other flavoring can be used like almond. They were formerly often made in the form of rings or rolls.
Jumbles were widespread, specifically because they travelled well, thanks to their very dense, hard nature. They could be stored for up to a year without becoming too
stale. Because of their density, they were sometimes twisted into knots before baking, in order to make them easier to eat, generating knots as another common name.
Jumbles were traditionally shaped in intricate loop or knot patterns, usually of rolled out dough. Early flavouring agents were
aniseed
Anise (; '), also called aniseed or rarely anix is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae native to Eurasia.
The flavor and aroma of its seeds have similarities with some other spices and herbs, such as star anise, fennel, licorice, and tar ...
,
,
caraway seeds
Caraway, also known as meridian fennel and Persian cumin (''Carum carvi''), is a biennial plant in the family Apiaceae, native to western Asia, Europe, and North Africa.
Etymology
The etymology of "caraway" is unclear. Caraway has been ...
and
rosewater. Later, especially in the United States, jumbles referred to a thin crisp cake or cookie using lemon-peel as a flavoring agent.
Terminology
Jumbles and cookies are very similar, and sometimes a jumble may be called a cookie, but cookie is a broader term for any small flat cake, used for small cakes as well as crisp ones, while jumbles are usually of the crisp variety.
A 1907 recipe for jumbles describes their texture as "crisp like snaps". The dough should be "so thin after rolling and cutting out, that one can almost see through them". The only moisture in the recipe is the creamed butter and "a scant cupful of milk or enough to make a stiff dough about like pie crust".
History
![Image from page 394 of](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Image_from_page_394_of_%22St._Nicholas_%28serial%29%22_%281873%29.jpg)
A recipe for "Almond Jumballs" is known from 1694, made by combining ground almond with orange flower water or rose water, then adding sugar syrup, dry sugar and egg whites. The ingredients were pounded to make a paste and could be colored with
chocolate
Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...
or
cochineal
The cochineal ( , ; ''Dactylopius coccus'') is a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, from which the natural dye carmine is derived. A primarily sessility (motility), sessile parasitism, parasite native to tropical and subtropical Sout ...
. They were brushed with lemon juice or rose water for enhanced flavor and very gently baked, with the caution that "it is best to sett them on something that they may not touch ye bottome of ye Oven."
Jumbles were widespread in Europe by the 17th century,
[''Oxford English Dictionary'', second edition, 1989.] but possibly originated in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
as the cimabetta. A very common cookie for travelers, they were probably brought to America on the
Mayflower
''Mayflower'' was an English ship that transported a group of English families, known today as the Pilgrims, from England to the New World in 1620. After a grueling 10 weeks at sea, ''Mayflower'', with 102 passengers and a crew of about 30, r ...
, if not
Jamestown previously. There is even a famous recipe for this type of cookie that is credited to
Martha Washington
Martha Dandridge Custis Washington (June 21, 1731 — May 22, 1802) was the wife of George Washington, the first president of the United States. Although the title was not coined until after her death, Martha Washington served as the inaugural ...
.
An 18th-century recipe from ''
The Compleat Housewife
''The Compleat Housewife; or, Accomplish'd Gentlewoman's Companion'' is a cookery book written by Eliza Smith and first published in London in 1727. It became extremely popular, running through 18 editions in fifty years.
It was the first co ...
'' is made by beating three egg whites with milk. flour, sugar and caraway seeds into a stiff paste. They could be made in any shape and baked on baking parchment.
Originally, jumbles were twisted into various
pretzel
A pretzel (), from German pronunciation, standard german: Breze(l) ( and French / Alsatian: ''Bretzel'') is a type of baked bread made from dough that is commonly shaped into a knot. The traditional pretzel shape is a distinctive symmetrical ...
-like shapes and boiled. By the late 18th century, jumbles became
rolled cookies that were baked, producing a cookie very similar to a modern
sugar cookie
A sugar cookie is a cookie with the main ingredients being sugar, flour, butter, eggs, vanilla, and either baking powder or baking soda (depending on the type of sugar used). Sugar cookies may be formed by hand, dropped, or rolled and cut in ...
, although without the baking powder or other
leavening agent
In cooking, a leavening agent () or raising agent, also called a leaven () or leavener, is any one of a number of substances used in doughs and batters that cause a foaming action (gas bubbles) that lightens and softens the mixture. An alterna ...
s used in modern recipes.
Victorian cookbooks contain recipes for many variations on the basic recipe with candied fruits, coconut, lemon, and other flavorings added.
Preparation
To make jumbles butter and sugar are
creamed together, then eggs or egg yolks are added, sometimes with milk, depending on the type of jumbles being made. Then the dry ingredients are added: flour, and any other ingredients like grated coconut, flavor extracts, and spices like cloves, cinnamon or allspice. Baking soda or baking powder can be added, and raisins. Sometimes the egg whites are whipped to a froth and added separately after the dried ingredients. The cookie dough can be rolled in sugar or cinnamon before baking. Techniques vary from recipe to recipe. There are many different types of jumbles: sugar jumbles, coconut jumbles, cinnamon jumbles, fruit jumbles (hermits).
A 1907 recipe for "cocoanut jumbles" is made with a 1:3 ratio of butter to sugar.
Etymology
The word "jumble" is derived from the French ''jumelle'', meaning "
twin
Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of TwinLast Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two em ...
", because of their shape.
Notes
External links
Sugar Cookies@
The Food Timeline
Lynne Olver (1958–2015) was a librarian and food historian, and the sole author of the Food Timeline website.
Personal life
Olver graduated from the University of Albany (SUNY). She was a librarian at the Morris County Library, New Jersey, ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jumble
Cookies
British desserts
British snack foods
American desserts
Anise
Foods containing coconut
Tea culture