What Laura Made: Honey Jumbles & the start of my challenge Women's Weekly Biscuit & Macaroon Challenge

I have decided that I need to make a little bit of a challenge for myself. For my birthday I was lucky enough to receive many lovely gifts, one of which was a box of 101 cookie cutters. I haven't used any until now and I thought I'd just have some fun with them and make a simple dough and use all the different cutters, but it was a disaster. The first batch were burnt, the second batch melted out of shape and by then I just gave up.

For this reason I have set myself a challenge to get to know biscuits & cookies a bit better and so I've decided to make every recipe from the Women's Weekly Biscuit and Macaroon cookbook that I was lucky enough to get my hands on when I was at home in December. I guess I'm cheating a bit as I've already made 2 recipes, one of which I've already blogged about and this is the other.

I've started off making two of my favourite biscuits that I missed from back home; Monte Carlo's and Honey Jumbles. My earliest memories of Honey Jumbles are from my Nana Peg's next door neighbour MeMe. She was a old frail lady who's husband had died many years before I was born and my mum had grown up going to visit her all the time as she had no children. As I remember it she had the perfect 50's kitchen and every time my brother and sister all went to visit she would happily sit down and play endless games of snap whilst eating honey jumbles and drinking a glass of milk. I can remember always having the same dilemma whether to have 2 pink or 2 white or one of each... actually this sounds a bit like a Mad Men advertisement.
The recipe for these was fairly simple, however it calls for golden syrup or treacle and as I somehow acquired a tin of black treacle that I rarely use I thought I would put it to use. However I think this resulted in the dough being very dark and strong treacle taste, however I didn't mind and I enjoyed them just the same. I think I got the texture as I remember it to be and there were the hints of nutmeg, cinnamon, mixed spice, cloves and ginger all coming through which are to this day some of my favourite spices and flavours.