Jumbles
INGREDIENTS for large dish of jumbles.-1 lb. of white sugar, 1½ lb. of flour, 1 lb. of butter, 2 lemons, a glass or two of wine or other flavouring if preferred (in which case milk must be used), the white of 4 eggs. AVERAGE COST, 2s. 6d.
Beat the sugar thoroughly into the butter till the mixture is quite light, then add the flour, the lemon-peel, grated, the wine or milk, the whites of the eggs, well whisked, and beat all well together. To mould the jumbles flour the hands and make rolls of from 4 to 5 inches long, not thicker than the little finger, then give the ends a twist. Butter a baking-dish well and lay in the jumbles, letting them be some little way apart, as they should spread in baking, and bake for 1/2 hour in a good oven.
TIME.- hour to bake the jumbles.
SEASONABLE at any time.
JULY, DINNERS FOR.
July-Dinner for Twelve Persons.
MENU. (English.) Quantity. Average MENU. (French.) 8. d.
Clear Soup. 2 quarts 2 6 Consommé à la Royale.
Turbot. 1 fish. 12 0 Turbot, Dutch Sauce. 2 tur. 10 Sauce Hollandaise.
Lobster Cream.
Chicken Cutlets. 1 mould. 36 Crême de Homard.
Côtelettes de Volaille.
Saddle of Mutton.
Potatoes.
Green Peas.
Ducklings. 2 dishes. 50 1 joint. 10 0 3 pints. 4 lbs. 1 10 3 birds. 60 26 1 mould. 26 50 1 Selle de Mouton.
Pommes de Terre.
Petits Pois.
Canetons.
Crême aux Fraises.
Pouding Glacée.
Strawberry Cream.
Iced Pudding.
July-Dinner for Ten Persons. £294 MENU. (English.) Quantity. Average Crayfish Soup.
Salmon.
Whitebait.
Fricasseed Chicken.
Quarter of Lamb.
Potatoes. French Beans.
Russian Salad.
Vanilla Cream.
Macédoine of Fruit.
Ices.
Cost. 8. d. 3 pints. 60 3 lbs. 56 2 pints. 50 1 dish. 46 1 joint. 3lbs.ea. 86 1 dish. 1 mould.
MENU. (French.) Potage d'Ecrévisses.
Saumon.
Blanchaille.
Fricassée de Volaille.
Quartier d'Agneau. 10 Pommes de Terre. Haricots Verts. 16 26 26 26 20 Salade à la Russe.
Crême de Vanille.
Macédoine de Fruit. 1 10 £1 19 0 July-Dinner for Eight Persons.
Glaces.
MENU. (English.) Quantity. Average 8. d.
Green Pea Soup. 3 pints. 30 Filleted Soles, 2 fish. 30 Sauce à l'Aurore. 1 tur. 09 MENU: (French.) Potage aux Petits Pois.
Filets de Soles, Sauce à l'Aurore.
Turban of Veal. 1 dish. 50 Turban de Veau.
Ducks. 1 pair. 70 Green Peas. 1 quart. 1 0 Potatoes. 3 lbs. 03 Raspberry Cream. 1 mould.
Liqueur Jelly. 1 mould.
Canetons.
Petits Pois.
Pommes de Terre.
Crême à la Framboises.
Gelée au Marasquin.
Cheese Soufflé.
Soufflé de Parmesan. £1 6 3 JULY, DINNERS FOR.
A very large batch of twisted butter cookies, written for a household baking by the pound. The quantities scale down cleanly by half or quarter.
- Cut the batch downAs written this is roughly four pounds of dough and will yield many dozens of jumbles. A quarter batch — 4 oz sugar, 6 oz flour, 4 oz butter, half a lemon's grated zest, 1 egg white — fits a domestic mixer and two sheet pans.
- The baking time is far too longHalf an hour will turn finger-thin cookies to biscuit. At 375F they need 10 to 14 minutes, until the edges just colour and the centres are still pale. Ignore the stated time and watch the pan.
- "A good oven"No temperature is given, and Beeton's oven words are not a fixed scale; a briskly moderate oven, in the region of 375-400F, is the usual reading. Use 375F for these, on parchment rather than a buttered dish, which keeps the thin ends from sticking.
- Wine or milk, not bothThe liquid loosens the dough, and where wine is used it also flavours it; if another flavouring is preferred the recipe substitutes milk. A wineglass is conventionally about 2 fl oz, and the recipe allows one or two, so at quarter scale start with a tablespoon. Add it a little at a time and stop when the dough is firm enough to roll by hand.
- Egg whites onlyFour whites and no yolks give a crisp, pale cookie rather than a rich one. Whisk them to a soft foam as directed; folding them in whipped keeps the dough from going dense.
- Lemon peelGrate only the yellow zest of the two lemons and leave the white pith, which is bitter. The juice is not used here; keep it for something else.
- ShapingFlour your hands well, roll ropes 4 to 5 inches long and no thicker than the little finger, then twist the ends as directed. Space them generously — the recipe expects them to spread.
- StorageCool completely and keep airtight; they stay crisp for a week or more.
Jumbles are among the older English sweet biscuits, appearing in recipe collections from the sixteenth century onward, often as a knotted or ring-shaped dough flavoured with rosewater, caraway or aniseed, and spelled variously (iumballs, jumbals, jumbolls). The origin of the name is uncertain; one long-standing suggestion connects it to the knotted shape, whether a lover's knot or a double "gemel" ring, but this remains conjecture. In this Beeton recipe the flavouring is lemon peel and wine, and the biscuit is one made by the pound and kept in a tin.