Oh my darling, Clementine

Tis the season to eat clementines, Fa la la la la, la la la la. A festive retake of the classic lemon drizzle. With candied orange slices to decorate. Totes delish.

imag1772

Clementine drizzle cake

  • Servings: 6-8
  • Difficulty: easy
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Credit: allrecipes.com

Ingredients

  • 225g golden caster sugar
  • 225g unsalted butter
  • 225g self raising flour
  • 4 free range eggs
  • 4 Clementines
  • Icing sugar

Directions

  1. Cream together butter and sugar, then grate/zest clementines and mix in.
  2. Whisk in eggs, it may look a little curdley with the acid from the fruit, add in flour and it’ll turn into normal batter.
  3. Pour batter into a 2lb loaf tin, and vake for 40-45mins or until it’s golden and a skewer comes out clean.
  4. To make the drizzle, juice 3 of the clementines and mix in 100g icing sugar. Prick surface of cake all over with a toothpick and drizzle yo drizzle all over.
  5. You can make a thicker icing to drip over the sides with the juice of the last Clementine and the remaining icing sugar (150g).

I decorated mine with the rather time consuming but ultimately worth it; Candied clementines. Though they take a while, you can wander off while they simmer/bake and come back to delicious, pretend they’re healthy (fruit, right?) candy sweets. I have seen these dipped in chocolate and given as gifts in hampers etc.

Candied Clementines

  • Difficulty: easy
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Credit;Tesco Real Food

Ingredients

  • 2 clementines
  • 200g sugar
  • 200 ml water
  • 2 tbsp caster sugar

Directions

  1. Thinly slice clementines and discard the ends. Put the sugar and water into a large pan and heat gently, stir until dissolved. Bring to a boil.
  2. Add the clementine slices and simmer for 2 hours, stirring occasionally, until the peel is translucent.
  3. Preheat the oven to as low as you can, I’m lucky enough to digitally set mine to 50°C, but around 80°C is fine.
  4. Drain slices and transfer to baking trays lined with grease-proof. Bake for 2 hours.
  5. Put the caster sugar in a bowl. Dip each slice into it and place on a wire rack to dry for 1 hour.

Gingerbread Dread

Over the years I’ve attempted many gingerbread houses, but rarely have they made it to the construction stage before being eaten.. whoops.

But this year a revolution, I was determined to not submit to gluttony, and if I dare say so, am immensely proud of the result.

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Its just so neat! In all the senses of the word, tidy and 50’s colloquial for pretty awesome.

Fairy lights are of course entirely optional, but it makes for a pretty Christmas decoration in the inevitably short interval before I succumb to temptation and the poor thing is consumed.

Gingerbread House

  • Servings: 25
  • Difficulty: easy
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Credit: allrecipes.com

Ingredients

  • 300g muscovado sugar
  • 375g unsalted butter
  • 150g golden syrup
  • 900g plain flour
  • 1 tbsp ground ginger
  • 1 tbsp mixed spice

    • Royal icing

  • 3 egg whites
  • 675g icing sugar
  • gel food colours
  • gold edible paint

Directions

  1. Pre-heat oven to 180 C/225 F/ Gas mark 5. Melt butter, syrup and sugar in a pan over a medium heat.
  2. Sift flour and spices, then slowly add to sugar/butter mixture. Turn out onto work surface and knead into a stiff dough.
  3. Divide into 5 equalish pieces, cut one in half so you have 6 (2 smaller) Roll out each dough lump to roughly 5 mm thick. I made my own templates, but as a rough guide, house front and back is 8″ by 7″. Sides are 7″ rising to 10″ in the middle, but 6″ wide. Roof is made with 2 smaller lumps, and 8″ by 4″. Use a sharp knife to cut out house pieces. Windows were cut out with a tiny heart cutter, swivelled to make a square.
  4. Bake for 20-25 mins until firm to touch. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.
  5. Decorate pieces with royal icing, I used a wilton #2 nozzle to outline windows and draw snowy tiles on roof pieces. Allow to dry, preferably overnight.
  6. Once decorated pieces are completely dry, pipe or smear royal icing along the connecting edges of the front, back and sides. Stand pieces up with iced edges touching. You may need to prop up your walls whilst icing drys.
  7. Once walls are solid, pipe the roof edges, and carefully place roof edges on top of house walls. With precisely measured pieces, it’ll fit perfectly, if you’re only human, royal icing will fill in any gaps.
  8. I added green foliage and red bows with  royal icing dyed with gel food colours, and then dabs of edible gold food paint.


Happy 1st Day Of December!

imag1960It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.. This being the first of December, it seems appropriate to start with a biscuit advent calendar! A mix of shortbread and gingerbread biscuits in a chequerboard, decorated with royal icing, and the occasional cheats fondant topper from the supermarket when my piping will began to flag.The presentation box is a Christmas card box, and was really the inspiration behind this bake.

Now down to the nitty gritty, the gingerbread is a recipe I’ve used many times and comes from the mighty Mary Berry so you know it’s gonna be good. In fairness the shortbread is a Paul Hollywood and equally deserving of praise.

Ginger and Shortbread Advent Calender biscuits

  • Servings: 25
  • Difficulty: easy
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Credit: BBCgoodfood.com

Ingredients

    Shortbread

  • 225g butter
  • 110g caster sugar
  • 225g plain flour
  • 110g cornflour
    • pinch of salt

    Gingerbread

  • 350g Plain Flour
  • 100g Muscovado Sugar
  • 125g Butter
  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/2 tsp mixed spice
  • 3 tbsp golden syrup

Directions

  1. Make the shortbread first as it can chill while you sort out the gingerbread. Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, sift the flour and cornflour into the mixture and then knead into a soft dough. Wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 mins.
  2. For the gingerbread melt the butter with the sugar and golden syrup in a pan over a medium heat. Mix flour and spices in a large bowl and pour int the butter mixture and stir into a stiff dough.
  3. Pre-heat the oven to 190°C/ 375°F/ gas 5. Roll out either dough to rough 3mm thick. Using a sharp knife and ruler cut out 2″ squares, you need 13 of each for the calendar but its always good to have spares. Place squares on baking sheets lined with greaseproof and bake for 12-15 mins.
  4. Allow to cool on baking sheets for 10 minutes then transfer to wire rack.
  5. Once completely cool, then the icing fun begins!

Royal Icing


Credit: homestyleChristmas

Ingredients

  • 2 egg whites
  • 500g icing sugar
  • gel food colours

Directions


1. Whisk egg whites and then slowly add icing sugar until you reach the consistency of toothpaste. This is your line icing, used for outlines and adding details.
2. For Flood icing to fill larger areas and create a smooth finish-add water a few drops at a time until its a portable custardy consistency.
3. Divide icing and use gel colours to dye into as many colours as your heart desires.
4. Pipe with line icing around the border of each biscuit, allow to dry.
5. ‘Flood’each biscuit with the same colour as its line icing so the borders are invisible. Allow to fully dry else details will bleed into base colour.
6. Pipe whatever toppers you can dream of, or if you get bored or lazy like me, add toppers from the supermarket (some of mine are from Aldi) using a dab of royal icing to help them stick.