Honey jumbles and celebrating food

I’ve had one of those weeks that really inspire you to love food. I had fabulous breakfast with a friend (which I couldn’t help myself but Instagram, check it out!), I reminisced about chocolate milkshakes, I watched my mother darling throw together an amazing meal to entertain a crowd and I had an unexpectedly delicious meal last night in Newtown.

I feel as though there are times in your life where you’re more appreciative of food than others. And seeing as I’m in this deliriously food-focussed mood, I picked out a jar of honey I’ve had sitting in my pantry for months and decided to make the most of it.

I bought the honey from A Slice of Orange when the boy and I escaped the city for a weekend. All of their produce is sourced from the surrounding regions, and it’s ALL delicious!! My honey was from Cabonne (as you could have surmised from the label) and it was so honey-ey that I could have spooned it straight into my mouth from the jar. It was smooth and sweet and slightly bolder than the honey I’m used to buying from my supermarket.

To celebrate this delightful honey, I made honey jumbles. These gorgeous little buttons are intensely flavoursome – there is spice and sweetness and so much honey in there that they are best complemented with a nice black tea. Honey jumbles remind of nannas , so drink your tea out of a cup and saucer and eat them off plates with paper doilies on them!

Honey Jumbles:

• 85g butter
• ½ cup honey
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 cups plain flour
• ½ tsp bicarb
• ½ tsp mixed spice
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon

Icing:

• 1 ½ cups icing sugar
• 20 butter
• ½ tsp vanilla
• 2 tbsp water

Combine the butter, honey and brown sugar in a small saucepan over a medium heat until the butter has melted and the sugar is no longer grainy. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool for at least five minutes.

Sift the flour, bicarb, mixed spice and cinnamon together in a bowl and then pour the honey mixture into it. Make sure that the honey mixture isn’t too hot, you don’t want to burn yourself! Stir the mixture until it is well combined. If you use a stand mixer, attach the dough hook for 30 seconds to make sure the mixture is smooth. If you’re kneading by hand, just fold the dough over on itself in the bowl for about two minutes, pressing the mixture into itself until smooth.

I didn’t knead my dough for very long at all, because this mixture is pretty obedient – you may find that your biscuit mix is smooth after a very short time. Trust your judgement, these biscuits are very compliant!

Shape the dough into a disc and wrap it in cling wrap. Pop it in the fridge for 15-20 minutes.

Line a baking tray (or two if you’ve got spare) and preheat the oven to 180°C.

After you’ve watched the clock for 20 minutes (everyone is as impatient as me, right?) whip the dough out of the fridge and grab a tablespoon. Divide the mixture into half tablespoon chunks. You’ll get about 30 jumbles out of the batch. The dough should look like ice cream – it’s kind of hard to describe, so I took a picture of it!

Roll each chunk into a ball in your palms and pop them onto the lined paper, they’ll flatten and spread slightly as they cook. Leave at least 2cm in between your jumbles, you don’t want them to spread into one another.
When they’re all rolled and ready to go into the oven, take a moment to admire how glossy and gorgeous the mixture is. The honey gives them a beautiful shine and the spices mean that the mixture has warmth to it. Also, if you’re a fan of raw biscuit dough, this dough is pretty delicious. My little brother said they look kind of like potatoes when they’re raw, and I wish he hadn’t pointed that out!

Pop them in the oven for 8-10 minutes and transfer them to a cooling rack.

As they’re cooling, microwave your butter so that it’s very, very soft and combine it with your icing sugar. Add the vanilla to the mixture and mix until smooth. If you want pink icing, divide the white icing that you’ve just made into two bowls and add 1-2 drops of pink food colouring to one of the bowls.