festive bakes

It's that time of year again... when I become so disorganised that I lump all of my festive baking into one blog post on Christmas Eve. YAY!

Personally, I find it just isn't Christmas without gingerbread boobie angels and saucy santas. This year I made sure I scheduled in the time to make them as I didn't manage to make any last year and it just felt plain wrong. Their little faces fill me with so much joy! I baked a batch of these to take in to my local music group's Christmas party and they went down an absolute storm.

I also baked a batch of mankini-clad gingerbread men and some questionably styled Tory hipster gentlemen as part of an in joke for some friends. This is probably the height of my piping decoration skills.

The amount of sugar and butter I've gone through in the last couple of weeks is obscene! I can't remember how many bags of sugar were emptied for all the tablet I made but I definitely used up at least 6 packs of butter for shortbread. I have a large extended family so large quantities of foodie presents are needed to take around when visiting relatives over the festive period.

It's always worth the mammoth effort though as I love seeing everything all packaged up with my childish funky handmade labels.

As I had leftover cranberries from my cranberry orange muffins I decided to try the cranberry, apple and cinnamon cake from Hannah's blog, Honey & Dough. I more or less followed the recipe, substituting caster sugar for soft light brown sugar, a cooking apple instead of a granny smith, and added 1/2tsp of vanilla bean paste to the batter. I also mixed some whole cranberries into the batter as well as scattering on top. My cake took twice the length of time to bake, probably due to the amount of fruit I put in, about an hour.

I baked this as a pudding to take to a friend's house last weekend and it was so well received that my friend asked for the recipe and she bought the ingredients the following day so she could make one. Then I decided to bake another too! Needless to say, it's a very tasty cake.

And finally, I baked a couple of ginger syrup bundts. They're full of flavour, keep pretty well and the recipe is nice and simple... unless you're baking whilst really tired and forget to add an ingredient. Yup, I forgot to add baking powder to one of them. Oops! So I got to keep a flatter bundt for myself.

I've been meaning to make mincemeat pies as well but I think I've reached my limit. After baking most evenings for the last two weeks I must admit to feeling rather pooped. You never know though, I might muster up some energy to make some closer to new year.

But for now I'm probably going to put my feet up, drink a lot of tea and wish everybody a very merry Christmas!

Trying to photograph the tree? Ok, I'll sit here then.
Cheers, Bob.

festive bakes

Merry Christmas Eve folks! As usual all my festive baking seems to happen in a last minute rush so I thought I'd group them together in one post like I've done in previous years. (You'd think I'd learn to be more organised!)

First off we have the annual batches of Christmas tablet! My mum drinks so much Douwe Egberts coffee that we have a substantial number of their jars by the end of the year and they're the perfect size for storing tablet. Just add some pretty tape, twirly ribbon and a handmade label and you've got yourself a lovely Christmas present.

Next up is a sticky, spiced apple and syrup bundt which I baked using this recipe from Dollybakes. The only change I made was using golden syrup instead of maple syrup for the glaze. I was so happy that this turned out the tin perfectly, I squealed with delight! Cake release spray is a glorious invention.

These cranberry and white chocolate biscuit/cookies are fast becoming an annual Christmas bake for me. Not only is white chocolate and cranberry a winning combination but these biscuits are quick to throw together which is perfect if you're in a hurry.

Sadly I haven't managed to bake my annual perverted gingerbread santas and boobie angels however I have baked these festive gingerbread cupcakes using a recipe I came across on Sally's Baking Addiction. Mine turned out a lot darker as I used half golden syrup half treacle in place of molasses. I also decided to top mine off with a cinnamon and golden syrup cream cheese icing and edible wafer snowflakes. As with most gingerbreads the flavour improved with age. They certainly packed a spiced, treacle-y punch.

For the first time ever I've baked shortbread! It's one of those bakes which my Granny was so good at making that I never felt I needed to bother. However this year Mum and I were really missing her shortbread so we followed Granny's recipe and they taste exactly like hers. We both thought it felt like getting a big hug. It officially feels like Christmas now that we have some Granny shortbread in the tin.

And lastly I made these chocolate brownie trees which I've seen on both Ros and Kate's blogs recently and couldn't resist baking. I wish I had more time to decorate these nicely but they were a last minute festive treat to take to my friends' house.

So that's what I've managed to bake in the run up to Christmas this year - a mixture of old and new recipes. Are you a traditional Christmas baker or do you like to switch things up and try new recipes every year?

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas! Hope you have a lovely day tomorrow. x

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

Millionaire's shortbread

Oh my, these have got to be the sweetest, stickiest, piggiest things known to mankind. They are heart attack inducing and one single piece may cause you to go up two dress sizes.

It is worth it though.

Sweet things on my sweet cake stand.

Millionaire's shortbread

This is apparently a Mary Berry recipe, which is appropriate since The Great British Bake Off is back on TV. However I can't remember which blog I found it on, sorry!

Base:

225g plain flour

100g caster sugar

225g butter

100g semolina

Topping:

175g butter

175g caster sugar

4 tbsp golden syrup

1 x 397g can condensed milk (yum!)

200g milk chocolate (or dark if you prefer)

Set the oven to 160C/Gas mark 2. Lightly grease/line a 20 x 33cm oblong tin. Mix the base ingredients until they form a smooth dough (I mixed by hand). Press into the tin and prick all over with a fork. Bake for 30-40 minutes until golden and firm, then leave to cool. Next put all the topping ingredients (except the chocolate) in a saucepan and stir over a low heat until the butter and sugar has melted. Bubble the mixture gently for 5-8 minutes, stirring constantly, until it is thick and fudgy and darker in colour. Pour into the tin evenly. Once that has set melt the chocolate and pour into the tin as well and spread evenly. Leave to set, (or mostly set if you're like me and desperately want a piece) then cut into squares and pig out!