Oh hello Christmas.....

I've known for some time (approximately 23 days) that its' December and my extensive education and calendar collection lead me to the knowledge that December ends in Christmas, and an endless list of baking possibilities. Having put off baking anything resembling a mince pie or refined carbohydrate for as long as possible, I succumbed today to the draw of the (totally overloaded) baking cupboard and went a bit over the top..... We've had building work going on in our cottage for about 1 million years (...18 months) and this past week we've finally got into our new living room - to celebrate this, and Christmas, we had the builders in for a glass of champagne this afternoon and 'a mince pie'. 'A mince pie' escalated when I was left on my own to around 56 mince pies, a huge pile of gingerbread biscuits, fudge and cupcakes.

A rather unfestive looking table, but there you go!

Rather pleased with my pretty little mince pies: last years were heart shaped because my star cutter went on a tour of the home counties, so I'm making up for it this year!  These are almond shortcrust pastry, incase you were wondering...

I made gingerbread cupcakes with milk chocolate icing after seeing some on Sweetapolita's blog (my favourite) here http://ow.ly/893fk and thought I'd have a play when mum mentioned the Christmas drinks; her icing is fluffier looking than mine, its been a LONG time since I last iced a cupcake so I may have done a hash job

The rum and raisin fudge was a bit hit and miss - last years attempt at fudge ended in me learning that you do actually have to get the sugar as hot as the recipe says you do, so this year I really tried to get it hot, but somewhere after that I sort of failed again and my rum and raisin never really set solid. But, it does taste very rummy so I'm probably drunk now thanks to being a massive lightweight with a sweet tooth.

Naturally I made far more mince pies than anyone could ever eat and stuck at the end of the table were some with orange shortcrust pastry and full tops so they look like little pies!

Recipes to follow when I need to do procrastinate in a more serious manner.

Turkish Delight Brownies

There are some days in a girls' life that can only be saved by chocolate.  Today I had one of those days and opted in favour of turkish delight to cure my ailment instead of my usual chocolate peanut of choice - the packaging is so pretty and pink!

Having made (and been obsessed with) snickers brownies earlier this year (please excuse the terrible iphone photos), I pushed my chocolate boundaries by using turkish delight instead of snickers as the brownie filling.

The result?  Delicious, naturally, but the flavour was really light from the turkish delight and was almost lost in the brownie because I used dark chocolate instead of plain chocolate.  Also where the turkish delight didn't melt or do whatever it may have done at high temperatures, there are lumps of it through the middle of the brownie rather than a layer like the snickers ones had.  Didn't effect the taste but it did look kind of weird...

Brownies (from http://bit.ly/hsO5ZG)
4 oz plain chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup butter
280g caster sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch salt
1 cup plain flour
around 250g of your chocolate bar/sweetie of choice; suggestions include snickers, bounty, creme egg and percy pigs (haven't tried but it would look pretty)

1) Preheat oven to 180 degrees and grease an 8x8 square tin
2) Microwave the chocolate and butter until the butter has melted; stir together until the chocolate has melted.
3) Stir in sugar, eggs, extract and salt.
4) Gradually add in the flour and stir until combined.
5) Pour half the mix into the tin, cover with chopped chocolate of choice and cover this with the remaining mixture.
6) Bake for 30 minutes and try to let them cool a bit before eating because they have burnt me many a time by tempting me with their chocolatey snickersy filling.

Happy Birthday to me!!

Its a sad day when the desire for a non-bloated tummy and the subsequent hangover stop you making and eating your own birthday cake until two days after your birthday, but needs must and so I have stuffed my face tonight quite happily with my favourite cake; coffee and walnut.

Beautiful!  The butter in the icing makes it so shiny and velvety looking, wonderful.

Its a 7" cake which is now my new favourite sized cake (is it weird to have a favourite sized cake?) so its nice and tall but chunky and the slices come out short but thick, so many short descriptive words.  Also the icing isn't coffee buttercream, its made with cream and melted, sort of burnt butter, and I like it (I like everything it appears).  I made it before a while ago and ate the whole thing with a fork, like a real lady.

Coffee and Walnut Cake (from the Great British Book of Baking)
175g unsalted butter
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
75g walnut pieces, chopped
175g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp instant coffee granules dissolved in 1 tbsp boiling water or 1tbsp coffee essence

1) Heat the oven to 180 degrees and grease and line two 7" cake tins; you can use 8" tins for a larger cake but I think they're cute in the smaller tins.
2) Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
3) Beat in the eggs one at a time
4) Sieve in the dried ingredients and fold in with a metal spoon; fold in the coffee essence and nuts.
5) Bake for 25 minutes until the sponges spring back when you poke them.

Icing
125g unsalted butter
300g icing sugar
3 tbsps instant coffee granules dissolved in 2 tbsps boiling water or 2 tbsps coffee extract
4 tbsps double/whipping cream
25g walnut pieces + extra if you want to decorate with them

1) Melt the butter until it goes frothy; heating it for slightly longer until it goes a pale brown colour gives it the stronger nutty taste I go on about liking.
2) Sieve the icing sugar into a heatproof bowl and add the melted butter, coffee and cream and mix together until smooth; stir through the chopped walnut pieces.
- The icing will need to cool before it can be used.