[Sca-cooks] iombils

[Betsy Marshall]

Actually, the technique you describe sounds just like how my mom used to
do home-made bagels- boil, then into the oven (she used a recipe with
potato water, and no anise seed..)
They were chewier than regular bread/biscuits, but not nearly as stiff
or dense 
as the commercial bagels from the store. Just my .02 lira
Betsy
 
-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-bounces at ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-bounces at ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of
Robyn.Hodgkin at affa.gov.au
Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2003 8:52 PM
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] iombils
 
Has anyone experimented with Jumbals, specifically the ones in Food and
Cooking in 16th Century Britain History and Recipes. (theoretically out
of The good Huswife's Jewell book 2; anyone got the original?)
 
To make Iombils a hundred: Take twenty Egges and put them into a pot
both the yolks & the white, beat them wel, then take a pound of beaten
suger and put to them, and stirre them wel together, then put to it a
quarter of a peck of flower, and make a hard paste thereof, and then
with Anniseeds moulde it well, and make it in little rowles beeing long,
and tye them in knots, and wet the ends in Rosewater, then put them in a
pan  of seething water, but in one warm, then take them out with a
Skimmer  and lay them in a cloth to drie, this being don lay them in a
tart panne, the bottome beeing oyled, then put them into a temperat Oven
for one howre, turning them often in the Oven. 
----
I gave these a bit of a bash last night.  I tried to make the recipe
proportional to the original (I didn't want 100 of them, so quartered
the recipe).   The jumbals I made were probably smaller than the recipe
had in mind, as I got about 40 out of the recipe, which should have made
25. 
 
5 eggs
125 g caster sugar
3 cups flour
1 tsp aniseed
Rosewater
 
I beat the eggs till fluffy, added the sugar while still beating, then
slowly sifted in the flour. Adding the aniseeds I mixed the dough by
hand and formed into knots.  These had their ends dunked in rose water
and put in a pot of slowly boiling water.  
 
Once they rose to the top,  I let them drain on a cloth, and then put
them into the oven.  I did a bit of experimenting with these stages,
trying the following combinations:
 
1. short time boiling, 15 min at 180 degrees
2. long time boiling, 15 min cooking at 180 degrees
3. short time boiling, 45 min cooking at 150 degrees
4. long time boiling, 45 min at 150 degrees
 
They were very interesting to cook - the dough went all rough in the
boiling water and didn't look too good.  However once in the oven, under
methods 1, 2  and 3 they swelled up again making very smooth, almost
shiny surfaced knots.  Under method 4 they didn't get as smooth.  
 
They looked cute.  The taste is quite nice too, though nothing to write
home about.  But texturally they were all problematic.  They were dense
and chewy, and I am glad I didn't make them any larger.  If cooked for a
longer time, either at low or higher heat, they did go sort of harder on
the outside; the long slow cooking giving them a more even brown colour.
But the insides didn't improve really; less chewy but hard and dry and
dense. I even tried making a full sized one, but that was still overly
dense and chewy.
 
I decided to re-cook some of the chewier ones so that the final products
are quite hard.   They will be ok as dunking biscuits (cookies for the
US readers), but I certainly am not willing to serve them to anyone
outside my family!
 
I cannot think of anything I could do that would change/improve the
recipe without transforming it to the point where they don't resemble
the original recipe any more. (a la "to the Queens taste" where they are
transformed into a sort of fritter!)
 
Anyone else out there played with this recipe or have
thoughts/suggestions?
 
Kiriel
ps.  Mind you I also made Bizcochos from Bridhid's translation from
Granado and they worked a treat!!!  I will post up redaction and pics on
my website soon. I also did Markham's "finer Jumbals" and they were
great too. 
 
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