Separate the egg and put the egg white in the bowl of a stand mixer. (You can also use a handheld mixer for this.) Whip the egg white until it is frothy, white, and full of small bubbles. It does not have to achieve stiff peaks to work in this recipe. The following is an excerpt of a recipe for almond jumballs recently added to Alyssa Connell and Marissa Nicosia’s Cooking in the Archives blog. The treat was not only derived from a Folger manuscript, but was also baked at the Folger, as the following photos show. To read more about the jumballs recipe, go to the full-length version on the blog. Here at Cooking in the Archives we believe that people can learn a lot about early modern recipes by reading them and cooking them. I can’t wait to here what else the Introduction to Paleography students find, try, taste, read, and learn as a result of this training. Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare two baking sheets by lining them with baking parchment or greasing them with butter or baking spray. Mix together ground almonds and flower water. Toast the almond mix for about 2 minutes. Remove when the mix starts to brown.

I love how these turned out and will definitely be making them again! I may also look up other recipes and try a few different versions just to compare and contrast.Can you read these two recipes? The first hand has more italic features and the last one is a classic secretary hand. Add the sugar syrup 1/2C at at time to the toasted almond mix. At this point you can form the mix into balls and divide into batches (if you prefer).

Unwanted Food or Drink Products - Once supply conditions are broken, there are a number of factors outside of our control that can affect the quality of a product. Therefore perishable goods such as food and drink cannot be returned. When my former paleography teacher Heather Wolfe [the Folger curator of manuscripts] asked me to talk about historical recipes with her Introduction to English Paleography course this summer, I jumped at the chance. Within a few minutes of discussion, Heather and I had settled on a cooking project in addition to a visit to her class. I cooked “Almond Jumballs” from Folger Manuscript V.a.429, folio 52v, with Heather, members of her class, and library staff and interns. It was a blast! For reasons of hygiene and safety, personal grooming products, cosmetics or items of intimate clothing cannot be returned. It’s high time that we talk about jumballs. We were initially mystified by the moniker, but jumballs are a classic early modern treat: A rich, satisfying, highly-spiced, shortbread cookie. They are the single most delicious thing we’ve cooked from the archives to date.

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Taste the mixture and add additional flower water to taste. (We didn’t add any more at this point.) Pour the sugar syrup into the ground almonds immediately. Stir until there are no almond clumps. Fold in the egg white. A thin batter will form.

Separate your eggs. You can either whip your egg whites to produce a slightly fluffier jumball or skip this step to create a chewier jumball (see results discussion below). Add egg whites to the almond sugar mix one at a time (approximate if whipped) until your dough is moist and pliable. You should be able to roll a piece of it into a log on a flat surface. Alyssa Connell and Marissa Nicosia have also used recipes from the Folger as an archival source for their blog, Cooking in the Archives: Updating Early Modern Recipes (1600-1800) in a Modern Kitchen. Inspired by the summer heat, Marissa recently included a recipe for snow cream from a Folger manuscript. Last month, she told the story of another recipe from the Folger manuscript collection, almond jumballs. We include a short excerpt from her jumballs blog post below: Put the sugar and water in a small saucepan. Affix a candy thermometer to the side. Bring the mixture to a boil and a syrup will form. Heat the syrup to 238F (114C). This is often called the “soft ball” stage. As a Penn graduate myself, I was especially pleased when a friend sent me the link to your blog. I’ve been sharing it with other Penn friends. I opted to interpret “spoonful” in the original recipe as a tablespoon, rather than a teaspoon based on a few other recipes from the same period that I’ve made recently. However, I haven’t researched the issue in any detail and my interpretation could be off.I made some jumballs and “desart cakes” today. The desart cakes came out okay, but the jumballs are delicious! When I’d mixed the dough, I put the bowl in the refrigerator for maybe ten minutes — which made the dough a little easier to work with. I made four rolls, wrapping each in cling wrap and putting it into the fridge. I took them out one by one to slice them, noticing that the last one (longest chilling time) was both easiest to slice and had the best texture after baking. This step would, of course, not been available to the original baker, except in winter. Fresh from the oven the jumballs were chewy, sweet, and fragrant. A day later they were like hard macaroons. We were pleased with how they turned out. They were nothing like the buttery seed-filled shortbread-like Jumballs Alyssa and I made in 2014. Every recipe book seems to have a receipt for Jumballs and we look forward to exploring more versions with you soon.

Cream together butter and sugar. Add the eggs and rosewater and stir to combine. Mix in salt, caraway, and flour to form a dough. Early modern kitchens, food, and recipes offer an intriguing window on the world in which Shakespeare lived. This version of this post first appeared on the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Shakespeare and Beyond blog. Bake for 10-12 minutes. (This will vary depending on the size and shape of your jumballs.) They are finished when they are golden at the edges and still pale in the center.

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This manuscript contains the handwriting of three (or more) individuals and it was used in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Two sets of ownership inscriptions grace the opening leaves (above). Our new Shakespeare Unlimited podcast episode is a fascinating interview with Wendy Wall, who explores the role of food, kitchens, and other related subjects in her 2015 book Recipes for Thought: Knowledge and Taste in the Early Modern English Kitchen. Alyssa and I always learn when we cook together, but cooking with a group was a new experience for me. With so many people completing tasks and offering opinions, we collaborated to make a better version of the recipe. For example, we weren’t sure if we needed to whip the egg whites or not before adding them to the almond and sugar mixture. By dividing the almonds into two batches, were were able to try both approaches. After trying and tasting both versions, we decided that the whipped egg whites added fluffiness, but because of the density of the almond mix they did not add enough buoyancy to make the step absolutely necessary. Others preferred the denser texture of the batch with the normal egg whites. My recipe above includes both options. Mix flour, sugar, and spices in the bowl of a stand mixer (or a large bowl if mixing by hand). Add melted butter, rosewater, egg yolks, and ground almonds and mix until a uniform dough forms. This recipe is naturally gluten free. I’d be curious to hear how an egg substitute would work if any of my readers prepare a vegan version.