honey jumbles

This Sunday we had to stay home from church (Toby had an ear infection and Jasper has caught his cold.  Sigh.  I love the way they pace themselves with infections diseases like this, makes the joy last that much longer…).  So we made honey jumble to cheer ourselves up!

Isn’t it a fabulous name!  Honey jumbles.  Sadly my recipe didn’t actually include honey (is that normal for honey jumbles?  Maybe the name just comes from the flavour), but once I’d told myself that was ok, we had lots of fun!

However, before we get into that, a confession.  I’m not great at baking.  I do it once or twice a week to keep something homemade in the lunchboxes, but it’s not something I love and I wouldn’t miss it much if I didn’t do it.  But having said that, there are definitely things about it that I do treasure.

I love cooking with the boys, teaching them little things that I remember my mother and grandmother teaching me (like it’s awesome if we actually break the eggs into the bowl, but it’s not the end of the world if they end up on the floor.  But it’s probably best if we don’t tell daddy).  I love the rhythm of baking…getting everything out, measuring (well, sometimes measuring), mixing, rolling or pouring, watching it transform as it cooks, the delicious smells filling the house.  I even like the flour all over the floor and clearing up at the end (again, might be best if we don’t tell daddy about that bit).

About half the time I bake, what comes out is edible and ok, but nothing fantastic.  About a quarter of the time it’s really yummy!  (Let’s not mention the other quarter.  Usually it involves distraction and smoke alarms)  Today it was a success, yippee!  They looked like tiny loaves of bread when they came out of the oven.

Even the icing seems to be ok, which is very unusual for me.  I’m very good at making bad icing.  Love this colour!

We just used a standard honey jumbles recipe; ours was from The Big Book of Beautiful Biscuits by the Australian Women’s Weekly.  I cooked from this book with my grandmother when I was little, and then we were given a copy as a wedding gift.  That’s probably the thing I love most about baking…it’s such a tactile was of keeping memories alive, and of creating new ones.