Jumble (cookie)
Jumbles are simple butter cookies made with a basic recipe of flour, sugar, eggs, and butter. They can be flavored with vanilla, anise, caraway seed, or other flavoring 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, coriander, caraway seeds and rosewater. Later, especially in the United States, jumbles referred to a thin crisp cake or cookie using lemon-peel as a flavoring agent.
Definition
Jumbles are a type of crisp cookie. A 1907 recipe describes their texture as "crisp like snaps", saying 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
Early
Jumbles have been eaten since at least the Middle Ages. The word jumble derives from the French gemmel, meaning "twin". Jumbles at this time were shaped into rings and knots, and were named for their resemblance to gimmal ring, which were made up of interlocking hoops. The French biscuit gimblette, similar to the jumble, derives from the same etymological root. Some early versions were boiled, as pretzels are today. During the 17th century, the wealthy and aristocrats of north Germany ate jumbles at Christmas under the name "Butter-Kringeln". For most Germans, the high price of the constituent ingredients—sugar, eggs, butter, wheat flour—made the jumbles inaccessible.In England, books included recipes for "Sugar Cakes called Jumballs". One recipe, published by Anne Blencowe at the end of the century instructed in making "Almond Jumballs", by pounding into a paste ingredients of almond meal, sugar, sugar syrup, egg whites, orange flower water or rose water, and chocolate or cochineal for color. Before cooking, these 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 the bottome of the Oven." Another recipe instructed in making "Knotts or Gumballs":
18th century onwards
By the 18th century, jumbles were being eaten in America, brought over by emigrants. More than in their homelands, these emigrants had access to more material wealth, and the dish became eaten throughout the year by a greater portion of the population. The jumbles they made were shaped into knots, bows, and most often rings, which were the easiest variety for a cook to produce at home. The shape was the defining aspect, with baked goods under the name jumble not having any implication of the ingredients used. At Christmas, bakers gave their jumbles color by sprinkling on top a colored sugar, and sometimes added flavor with caraway seeds.In the 19th century, jumbles became increasingly sweet as sugar became cheaper and more accessible. Some recipes, such as one published in 1825 in Hudson Valley, New York State, called for sugar to be sprinkled on top of the cookie before baking ended, producing a white, translucent surface. Crispy jumbles were popularly served with warm drinks in which they were dunked.
As a relatively small amount of flour came to make up jumbles, their shape became more and more flat, until some varieties were being known under the names "Paper Jumble" and "Wafer Jumble". By the later 19th century, recipes for jumbles with little flour were so liable to fall apart that some called for the cook to firm up the dough in the refrigerator for several hours before shaping. Shaping now was done with tin, mass-produced jumble cutters that were also used for shaping doughnuts. They remained associated with Christmas, appearing in illustrations being carried by Santa Claus and decorating Christmas trees.
Jumbles declined in popularity in the late 19th century as sand tarts became more widely consumed. By the 1990s, jumbles were still being produced by the American grocery chain A&P, although food historian William Woys Weaver described the jumble as "almost extinct".
By the late 18th century, jumbles became rolled cookies that were baked, producing a cookie very similar to a modern sugar cookie, although without the baking powder or other leavening agents used in modern recipes.