Cakespy: Spiced Jumbles With Vanilla Frosting
Note: Jessie Oleson (aka Cakespy) is a good pal of Serious Eats and all-around super cool gal. Every Monday she will be chiming in with a delicious dessert recipe.
When I ponder the long and arduous journey the pilgrims made from Europe to the New World, one question rises in my mind above all others: what did they eat for dessert? Jumbles, of course.
Jumbles are cookies originally documented as early as the late 1500s in Europe. Since they fared well on long sea voyages, they were one of the first cookies brought over to the colonies. Strictly speaking, they aren't really a remarkable cookie. Made with a basic mix of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour, they're more of an empty canvas, taking their personality from various mix-ins.
Early versions were either baked or boiled, often in figure eight shapes. Some say this made them easier to eat, as they tended to become dense and hard (incidentally, this also may explain the name jumble, which is derived from gemel, meaning "twin" in Latin). Rock-like or not, they were undoubtedly a step up away from hardtack.
Jumbles have come a long way since the Mayflower.
Today, they're generally baked as drop cookies with lightly mixed ingredients, and the sky's the limit when it comes to flavor variations. My favorite recipe yields a soft, pillowy cookie which is spicy and only lightly sweet. Coarsely chopped pecans add a pleasing richness and slight crunch. They're wonderful as is, but when topped with a generous dollop of vanilla frosting, they're even better.
Spiced Jumbles With Vanilla Frosting
- makes 36 cookies -
Ingredients
For the cookies:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup light cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans (optional)
For the frosting:
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
5 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1/2 cup light cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup candy rocks for garnish (optional; they're available at cake decorating supply stores)
Procedure
1. Blend flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg together in a large bowl; put off to the side.
2. Mix butter, sugar and egg until fully incorporated; Stir in buttermilk and vanilla.
3. Add flour mixture little by little, stirring well with each addition, until fully incorporated. If you are adding nuts, add them now and mix just until incorporated. Allow the dough to chill for about an hour.
4. Preheat oven to 400°F.
5. Using a teaspoon or a mini ice cream scoop, drop rounds of dough on your lightly greased cookie sheet, leaving at least 2 inches around each dough ball. If desired, sprinkle with a little extra cinnamon and nutmeg before baking.
6. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. The cookies will not be brown on top, but will have a slight toasty color on the bottom.
7. Make the frosting. Place the butter, cream, vanilla, salt and 3 cups of the sugar in a the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix on low speed, adding the rest of the sugar bit by bit until the desired consistency is achieved.
8. When the cookies are completely cool, spread with frosting. If desired, give Plymouth Rock a shout out by garnishing with candy rocks.
About the author: Cakespy is the alter ego of Jessie Oleson, a Seattle-based writer, illustrator, and cake anthropologist who runs Cakespy, an award-winning dessert website.
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
6 Comments:
These sound similar to 'rock cakes' that my british granny used to make, funny how the names change!
jennywenny at 6:14PM on 08/24/09
"Rock cakes" -- I love that! I'll bet a lot of different cookies share common ancestry--isn't it fascinating?
cakespy at 6:26PM on 08/24/09
For centuries Jumbles were made into decorative shapes and a banquet table delicacy. Even early recipes used in the US specify rings and knowledgeable hostesses would understand that meant a variety of shapes. The consistent addition of lumpy ingredients seems to have occurred somewhere in mid-20th century. One has to assume that the name confused people into thinking that the ingredients should be a "jumble" of add-ins. Books like "Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery and Booke of Sweetmeats" by Karen Hess go into detail on the origin. Nancy Baggett's "The All-American Cookie Book" has some of the history, too. Of course, since the dough works as well as a drop cookie, any baker in a hurry could just drop the dough on a cookie sheet whether it was 1585 (earliest printed recipe I have) or today.
smbetz at 3:27PM on 08/25/09
Interesting to see how that gap was bridged. Thank you Smbetz! Also speaking to the confusion about the name, I have heard that "jumble" as a cookie actually precedes "jumble" used as a state of confusion. I'm going to have to check out the books you mentioned, they may shed some light on that too!
cakespy at 5:13PM on 08/25/09
My mind reeling from the concept of a boiled cookie. We've come a long way since those pilgrims, eh? Nice to see you yesterday!
MichaelNatkin at 5:21PM on 08/30/09
Michaelnatkin: I know! Apparently as I have heard from another reader, there is a very delicious boiled peanut butter chocolate cookie out there. I've never tasted it though! Awesome to see you as well this weekend! :-)
cakespy at 5:10PM on 08/31/09