Advent Calendar – Day Twenty Three

Day Twenty Three on the Advent Calendar and my little girl is coming home for Christmas! And tomorrow Tim will be back, weather permitting and Christmas can begin…

So what we need is a seasonal tipple to celebrate and what could be better than mulled wine?

This is the recipe in my little black book which I always turn to…

1 bottle of red wine (Cabernet Sauvignon or similar)

3/4ltr water

1 orange stuck with cloves

1 orange, slice

1 lemon sliced

3 tblsp sugar

small piece cinnamon stick

1 tspn ground ginger

2 tblsps brandy

With everything in saucepan, bring it up to simmering point stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Keep it at this heat for 20 min or more, but do not allow to boil or the alcohol will evaporate. (This can be made in advance and reheated)

Serve in warmed glasses.

What more can I say? Cheers and Bottoms Up!

Advent Calendar – Day Twenty Two

Today for the Advent Calendar I’m going to let you in on a big secret! It’s my special pudding for Christmas time, the one that people always get excited about and ask for. But the biggest secret about it is that it’s probably the easiest pudding I ever make, it’s one of the most delicious and everything you need can be stored in the fridge, freezer and cupboard ahead of time.

So before I regret letting the cat out of the bag here it is…

Penny’s Extra Special Extra Easy Christmas Trifle

You start off with either Trifle Sponges or Jam Swiss Roll which you either break up (the sponges) or slice (the Swiss Roll) Arrange in the base of a pretty serving bowl.

Take a 350g pack of frozen fruit, I use about half but it depends how fruity you want to be! I like raspberries or a mix of raspberries, blueberries and blackberries, scatter them over the sponge…

…reserving about a cupful. Put these in a small pan with a dessertspoon of sugar and a little water and heat slowly, stirring occasionally until the sugar has dissolved and you have a light fruity syrup. Stir in about 2 tablespoons of sherry, it’s always Harvey’s Bristol Cream in our house, and spoon over the fruit and sponge in the dish.

Next, the custard. You have three choices here. You can go down the route of ‘proper’ custard, with milk eggs and sugar and stirring and splitting, swearing and worrying, you can crack open the Bird’s Custard Powder and make a pint of custard according to the instructions, or you can buy a carton of your favourite supermarket’s readymade custard in a carton.

Whatever you choose, stir in 2 or 3 tablespoons of sherry until it’s completely blended and smooth and if it’s hot allow to cool slightly before spreading it over the fruit and sponge. The beauty of the frozen fruit is that it finishes cooling the custard, and the custard defrosts the fruit.

At this point you can cover the dish with cling film and pop it in the fridge for up to 24 hours. To finish, whip a carton of whipping or double cream until it forms soft peaks and cover the cold custard.

Then decorate. My personal favourite is toasted slivered almonds, but you could use more fruit, or glace cherries, or even hundreds and thousands. Whatever you use, I can guarantee compliments.

Today I’m off to my mum’s for a pre-Christmas get-together with my sister and her family, guess what I’m taking with me!

Ooh, we’re nearly there…see you tomorrow…x

Advent Calendar – Day Twentyone

I’m hoping that the Advent Calendar for today is going to get posted and that the world hasn’t ended yet. Those Mayans have a lot to answer for!

For me, the 21st December is a special day because it’s the Winter Solstice, and this date always means so much more to me than the man made celebrations of New Year. The shortest day, and tomorrow the world in the Northern Hemisphere starts turning forward into the light. Now that’s something to celebrate! We usually get together with friends for a celebration as we did last year but with Tim offshore and various other reasons it’ll just be me, Higgins and Henry tonight!

But that’s why today’s Advent make is all about light, I’ve been making candle holders.

I’ve always got too many jam jars, and although I could recycle them so many are just too nicely shaped to drop in the bottle bank. And I love to light the room wth candles in the winter, it looks so pretty and festive, so I’ve rootled around in amongst my pretty bits and pieces and decorated an assortment of glass jars for holding tea lights.

With pretty paper (this is the time you can print out on the most basic and thin 80gsm printer paper!) Lace scraps, short lengths of ribbon, cord, string and trimmings your imagination can run riot and you can fill your mantelpiece or windowsill with twinkling prettiness.

I hope that’s inspired you, even if it’s only to get all the half used jars out of the cupboard and make jam tarts so you can decorate them!

Talking of cooking, I have a date in the kitchen. Tomorrow I’m meeting my sister and family over at my mum’s for lunch, and I’ve promised to take one of my most popular edible creations to the party. I’ll be bake tomorrow to share the recipe…

I’ll see you then, and in the meantime, Happy Solstice!

Advent Calendar – Day Twenty

Can you believe we’re at Day Twenty on the Advent Calendar? I’m out in the office with the rain hammering on the roof in a most unseasonable fashion, while Higgins makes the most of his cosy little bed by the heater.

I’ve never known a dog who likes to be wrapped in a blanket as much as Higgins does!

Anyway, despite the gloom I’ve managed to take some photos of today’s make. (I seem to have had my camera set to the ‘Low Light’ setting for days and days). I loved the music sheets from this post so much I was determined to use it some more, so this time I’ve made a Christmas Song Bird.

It’s very simple to make and lends itself to all sorts of variations depending on the paper you use. You need something fairly sturdy, or a light card. Double sided wrapping paper would be good or you could scan or photocopy on to both sides of your sheet of paper. For children you could draw out the shape first for them to colour it in, then cut out and complete.

Because this requires a template I have made the instructions as a PDF so you can print it out. You’ll find it by clicking on Christmas Song Bird right here, then clicking again on the link which comes up. This is first time I’ve tried this so do let me know if you have problems.

So that’s the Advent Calendar for today, and I’ll be back tomorrow if we haven’t been washed downstream!

See you then…x

Advent Calendar – Day Nineteen

Today for the Advent Calendar I am responding to a special request for a bow tying tutorial from a regular reader which came about after the Day Twelve project, the tiny Christmas rings. These little bows are the ones I glue or sew on to projects, rather than for tying parcels or shoe laces.

As I started the photographs I realised that my lefthandedness might be a problem so I have flipped all the photos so it suits both left and right handed people. I’m just a slightly concerned about the reader who requested tutorial in the first place. Marigold is a goat… Does it work with hooves? I don’t think so, but hopefully she has a helpful human around to assist her!

I find it easier and more economical with the ribbon not to cut off a length but to leave it on the reel.

1. Make a loop at the end of the ribbon…

2. Bring the long end up in front and over to the back…

3. around the first loop then push a loop of the ribbon through the second loop formed by the thumb.

4. Pull through, and the bow is formed.

5. Carefully pull the loops to tighten the central knot to hold the loops then tweak and pull to make the loops your desired length, cut off from the reel and trim the tails.

I’ve seen ribbon bows for sale in packs of 10 or 12 in craft shops and they’re quite expensive. It bothered me for ages that whenever I tried to make my own I could never get two loops at the top and two tails at the bottom, they were always lopsided but now I’ve figured it out I buy my ribbon out of the remainder basket or in bulk and save some cash.

Now I hope you can too!

Good luck, Marigold, do let us know how you get on!

Advent Calendar – Day Eighteen

I’ve been pottering around in the kitchen for Day Eighteen of the Advent Calendar, making lovely Christmassy smells!

I have a little black book, a Moleskine, which has lived in my hand bag for several years and into which I write down useful stuff, lists, things to do and recipes. It’s quite interesting to delve back and see what comes to light, and disconcerting when I find things which were obviously important enough to write in the book at the time, but I have absolutely NO idea what on earth it all means now! I suppose you could take that as a philosophical view of a lot of the things we stress about today, because they’ll be irrelevant tomorrow!

Anyway, I have a recipe for Spice Biscuits which I’ve never made before but seemed just right the Advent Calendar. I’m afraid it provenance is lost in the mists of time, but having made them and tested them out on my Mum (and Higgins, but only a tiny piece) it definitely earns it’s place on the blog.

It’s a good recipe for using some of those little jars of spice which lurk in the back of the cupboard. I’ve got so many from which only half a teaspoonful has been used, and has anyone ever worked their way through a whole box of Star Anise? (Just check the sell by date, I don’t think they go off exactly but lose their flavour and go sort of dusty if they’ve been hanging around since 2005)

So here we are…

SPICE BISCUITS

250g (8oz Self Raising Flour

1/4 teaspoon each Ground Spice, Ginger, Nutmeg, Anise, Mace, Cloves, Cardamon, Cinnamon

125g (4oz) light brown sugar

60g (2oz) ground almonds

125g (4oz) unsalted butter, softened

1 egg (size 3) Beaten

1) Preheat the oven to 190 deg/375 deg F/ Gas 5, Line 3-4 baking sheets with non stock baking parchment

2) Sift flour and spices together into a bowl. (Some of the spices I used were not ground so I gave them a pounding in the pestle and mortar ind the sieving sorted out the unpalatably big bits.) Stir in sugar, ground almonds andf the butter cut into small cubes. Rub in until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

3) stir in just enough egg to bind and knead into a ball.

4) Roll out and cut using cutters of your choice. Place on trays and if you want to hang them use a drinking straw to make holes.

5) Bake for 10 mins or until beginning to turn golden brown.

6) Cool for 5 mins on the tray then transfer to a cooling rack.

The biscuits are light and crisp and the spiciness is subtle and not overpowering, they went perfectly with morning coffee…and were pretty good with afternoon tea too…and there were still enough to go on the tree (Very high up, of course!)

If you don’t have all the spices mentioned here it it would be worth experimenting with mixed spice, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, the equivelant of 2 level teaspoons.

I’ll be back tomorrow…x

Planet Penny

Crafts, Needle Felting, Crochet, Patterns & Tutorials