Christmas time... mistletoe at £3

'Ello all. One assumes that we are all fed and... fed. Quite possibly you are hitting the mad Christmas sales like the rest of the world. I was quite petrified on entry to M&S in Marble Arch that we pretty much left as soon as we got there. Scary. Anyway, here's my baking run down - there's not much in fairness since we were mainstreaming on the savoury stuff. A chicken, some pork, a forerib of beef for boxing day. I did however make some truffles which though very yummy, pretty basic - chocolate, hot double cream and a drop of peppermint essence if you fancied it. I also made mincepies with some cranberry mincemeat from Waitrose. The recipe was from Nigella's Christmas. Since SOMEONE complained that we never get to see the failures, I want to post this. Personally I don't think of it as a failure - I KNEW it was going to bubble over, but then I wanted the volume of mincemeat that we had. If you don't want it to do this, one option is to put a lid on it (literally!) the other is to only fill it with a little bit and then top up later. It's yummy for me anyway (who was the only person who liked mincemeat to begin with, but dealers choice. For artistic-al ones... look away.

Other things... we had a white Christmas here in Herts, but as it had been white for a week it's less fun. A few funky gifts from the relatives - a Wreath cake tin?? Will be making that this week so look out for that if you are... well that bored :P Enjoy your Xmas everyone!!

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Rachel Allen's Chicken Pie

Some things should be noted. I'm not a major fan of Rachel Allen. She always seemed such a poor man's version of Nigella. Some trophy wife of a producer somewhere making a lady of leisure's living of cookery shows playing up the Irish accent in a cavernous show kitchen. Perhaps it was because all her helpful "tricks" had already been touted by others a long time ago - like getting the garlic smell out of your hands... But over the years she's kind of grown on me. The format is a little twee, the pink accessories want to make me barf, but she isn't the spawn of all things faux goddess anymore. (FYI I have no idea with regards to her personal life etc, but like my distaste for Ashley Judd, one wonders how she gets good films with little acting skill.) So here I was, tapping away on the internet last week whilst she was on tv, and there it was. A beast of a pie. It was so beautiful. Her job was done. Out I trotted to buy a huge pie dish (we don't own cera...

Raspberry Cream Cheese Buns

What with my new cupcake books arriving from Amazon, one look at the Raspberry Cream Cheese buns on someone elses's site (made with blackcurrant there) and I had to make them. Knowing full well my family wouldn't touch them. Four of these babies were therefore made with big dollops of lemon curd instead, which made delightfully caramelly messes of the tin, but also on the buns, not that I get to touch those - I have eight buns to eat! The original recipe is from Buttercup Bakery book (New York) and one of these days I'll try the dried cherry one from Magnolias (since I own the book...) What you need to know about these is that the recipe is easy - as easy as muffins are, but they sink like heck given the amount of preserves you're putting in them. What they give back though, is something so moist and rich you just want to sink yourself into them. And since I've eaten two of them, I'm doing quite well! As you can see, massive craters. If you don't want that...

Lemon Cake by Nigel Slater

I think I've been failed by Nigel Slater. It's very disturbing. Now he says he's not a cake man anyway, he's predominantly mains, ice cream and the odd fruit based dessert. However, I had poppy seeds, so I decided to borrow his recipe from Kitchen Diaries and tweak. I have to say it was an easy to make, albeit I judge him for requesting 90g of ground almonds when the packets come in 1oog amounts. So anyway, the cake. Which I forgot to add the poppy seeds to until the cake was in the pan. But I digress. Why did I feel the cake failed? Well it lacked the lemony-ness one craves. But, even worse - although might be partially my fault.... it tasted quite bitter when warm. That could be because that's an entire lemon with peel sitting on the top. Or it could be that I made the syrup in the pan that held the slightly caramelised lemons. Oh well. Live and learn. And also figure out a way to use the shredded coconut that's in the cupboard...

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