Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas yesterday! Santa gave me a new macro lens and I had way too much fun playing about with bokeh all evening.

The only thing I've eaten today is Terry's Chocolate Orange and I plan to eat trifle next. Gotta love Christmas eating habits :)

Happy holidays everybody!

Festive bakes: round 2

I think I may have finally met my match in terms of baking. I have baked so much in the last week or so that the thought of eating anything sweet almost makes me feel ill! As I am a disorganised blogger I thought I'd cram everything together in another big, festive food post. (My first festive post can be found here.)

First up are these cranberry and white chocolate cookies. I've made these cookies/biscuits before and had forgotten how good they are!

They're crunchy round the edges and slightly chewy in the middle. I love the contrast of tart cranberry and sweet white chocolate. It was difficult stopping everybody from eating these when I was trying to pack them up as gifts.

After the cookies I baked these snickerdoodles, also from the Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days book.

Unfortunately I was really disappointed with these so didn't give them away. I liked the idea of them, sweet and cinnamony, but they came out far too doughy/floury. They were baked as little balls and were meant to flatten during baking but mine stayed fairly ball shaped. Not sure what went wrong there.

After the disappointment of the snickerdoodles I made date and cinnamon shortbread, although I would say it's more of a bar than a shortbread.

I liked the technique of the rubbing together the flour and butter, stirring in the dates and sugar and then dumping the mixture into the tray and pressing it in! This bake scores highly in the no faff ratings. I also sprinkled some of the left over cinnamon sugar from the snickerdoodles on top when it was fresh from the oven which added a lovely touch. My mum and brother really liked these.

I was determined to bake some festive cupcakes this year as I've been dying to use my cute snowman cases. I made some chocolate orange cupcakes, which I have made before, but I decided to use the Hummingbird Bakery's basic chocolate cupcake batter instead with the addition of some grated orange zest.

I love the icing for these cupcakes. I could eat it all day (that could be why I've been feeling ill...) and they look extra pretty with terry's chocolate orange wedges.

I have also baked some basic vanilla cupcakes for the weirdos people who don't like chocolate orange, the sponges for the Christmas trifle and the date traybake for sticky toffee pudding! (We have two puddings for Christmas. Partly out of greediness but mostly because we can't agree on one dessert.)

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas! Hope Santa is good to everybody tomorrow x

5 festive bakes

Not long till Christmas now! I've been busy making Christmas presents for the past month but it really feels like Christmas now that I've started my festive baking. I debated splitting all my festive bakes into separate posts, but decided to make one massive Christmas post instead. Hope you enjoy it!

First up are the funky gingerbread biscuits I baked yesterday to give to my cousins. They're quite crunchy, definitely more of a biscuit than a gingerbread, so they're good for dunking in your tea or coffee.

My mum helped with the decorating. We definitely have more of a childlike than professional quality. But who wouldn't want a stripey or splodgy dinosaur biscuit?! I don't know why I don't make biscuits more often as I love all my cutters, the dinosaurs in particular.

You know it's officially Christmas when you make mincemeat pies. I know many will be disappointed that I used bought mincemeat but I had jars left over from last year and I don't like to waste food. I made my own sweet shortcrust pastry though. It has ground almonds in it which gives the pastry a lovely crumbly texture.

It's also officially Christmas in my household when my Mum makes tablet (fudge/candy). I think we made 5 batches(!) to package up prettily as gifts. Don't even ask how much sugar is involved. It is not healthy!

I have also baked a couple of ginger bundt cakes to give to some aunties and uncles. They look impressive without taking up much of your time and they're perfect for sharing. I think my aunties and uncles will like that it's Granny's sticky ginger cake recipe too.

And lastly, a rarity on my sweet toothed blog, a savoury creation! I found this recipe for caramelised red onion chutney through the Cake Hunter (she's got a fantastic Christmas Countdown Gifts series at the moment which is worth checking out).

Chopping so many onions was a tearful task and certainly left a strong aroma in the house, but it was definitely worth it. This recipe made 3 and a half Bonne Maman jars worth of chutney. I'm glad there's a half jar so I can keep one for myself to eat with cheese. If I'm not eating cake, I'm definitely eating cheese.

How are your festive plans coming along? What are you all baking for Christmas? The amount of sugar and syrup I have gone through this weekend is insane!

Recent utility china finds

When my sister-in-law texted me asking if I wanted some utility china the only natural response to give was "YES!" She found a stash of Johnson Brothers Greydawn and Grindley Peach Petalware at a charity shop for about a fiver and since she's very nice she decided to split it with me.

I am now the proud owner of tureens, cereal bowls and a gravy boat. I've also got more large (soup?) bowls and those odd but useful in between sized plates.

I actually found the yellow Grindley tureen separately a few weeks ago but decided to lump it in with this post. I'm not sure if the lid goes with the bowl as it doesn't fit very well and I'm convinced it's a different shade of yellow, but it only cost about £1.50 with another tureen bowl so I'm not complaining.

The Johnson Brothers Greydawn tureen might just be the cutest tureen in the world. I love the handle on the lid.
 

Is it sad that I feel so refined now that I own a gravy boat?

I think I have finally ticked off most things I want in terms having a fully functioning, mismatced utility china dinner service. I'd like to find a few more dinner plates, preferably Woodsware, as I'm very fond of my Jasmine Woodsware dinner plate. Not sure where I'm storing my new pieces though as my box of utility china delights is full, but I'm happy admiring them at the moment.

Has anybody else found any nice china recently? If you fancy seeing more utility china I'd recommend visiting Vintage Sheet Addict and The Vintage Knitter as they have found some lovely pieces.