Also 7–8 jumball. [perh. orig. the same as GIMBAL 1, GIMMAL 1.] A kind of fine sweet cake or biscuit, formerly often made up in the form of rings or rolls; now in U.S. ‘a thin crisp cake, composed of flour, sugar, butter, and eggs, flavored with lemon-peel or sweet almonds’ (Cent. Dict.).
1615. Markham, Eng. Housew., II. II. (1660), 97. To make the best Jumbals, take the whites of three Eggs … a little milke and a pound of fine wheat flowre and suger together finely sifted, and a few Anniseeds … make them in what forms you please, and bake them in a soft oven upon white papers.
1678. Phillips (ed. 4), Jumbals, a sort of Sugared past, wreathed into knots.
1694. Motteux, Rabelais, V. xxvii. O’ Tuesdays, they us’d to twist store of Holy-bread … Jumbals and Biscuits.
1769. Mrs. Raffald, Eng. Housekpr. (1778), 274. To make Barbadoes Jumballs.
1860. O. W. Holmes, Elsie V., vii. (1891), 110. There were … hearts and rounds, and jumbles, which playful youth slip over the forefinger before spoiling their annular outline.
