Christmas Cake - a bit more festive

Well, here we have the finished article for this year.

In truth it doesn’t look much different from the one I usually do although the cake itself, under the topping, is entirely different as you will have seen from the post below. I seem to have hit on a winning formula for the topping of the cake a few years ago; it works for us and if it ain’t broke I won’t fix it.

There’s a very good chance that it’ll be cut into quite soon, since Mr S-V keeps giving it the eye every time he opens the pantry door! As he quite rightly points out, though, there’s no sense in keeping everything back to eat at Christmas because it’s just not humanly possible to have a taste of all the goodies in one day. You can’t deny his logic…

1 18cm square rich fruit cake
white marzipan
a little icing sugar
3 tbsp apricot jam
1 tbsp brandy
soft dried apricots
whole brazils
whole pecans or walnuts

ribbon







Make the glaze by heating the jam and brandy gently in a small pan until the jam melts, then rub the mixture through a sieve with the back of a spoon.

Using a pastry brush, paint the top of your cake generously with the glaze; roll out the marzipan to a depth of about 0.5cm on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar and cut to size using the base of your cake tin as a guide. Lay the marzipan on top of the cake and brush with more glaze.

Arrange the fruit and nuts on the marzipan, pressing them in lightly, then brush generously with the rest of the glaze.

Tie the ribbon round the side of the cake.

Store in an airtight tin in a cool place.

Update: 22.12.14

Cake has been cut and sampled - a resounding success. Really fruity with a moist texture. Oh, my poor expanding waistline... Many thanks to Russell at Flatford for a brilliant recipe.

This Year's Christmas Cake

Well here we are in the first week of November and I’m already getting ready for Christmas. If I’m not careful I’ll be getting ahead of myself!

Over the weekend the house smelt like Christmas had already arrived; I made our Christmas pudding on Saturday and on Sunday I made this years’ cake. I used a recipe by Russell Clement, Catering Manager at Flatford, one of the National Trust’s properties. The recipe was on the back of our latest newsletter and I was intrigued by it – I’ve never seen a recipe where some of the fruit was blitzed and then mixed in, but it sounded so good I just had to give it a try. Obviously I haven’t tasted the cake yet but if the taste of the mixture (when I ran my finger round the empty bowl!) is anything to go by it’s definitely a winner.

 

It looks pretty damn fine to me as it is, but I’ll top it with marzipan and a pattern of glazed nuts and fruit to prettify it a bit. Can’t wait to have a slice with a cuppa a bit nearer the big day!

 

I emailed Flatford to ask them if I could use Russell’s recipe on the blog and they very kindly agreed, so here it is in its entirety… The only thing I changed was the baking time, although that may be my oven; I ended up cooking it for exactly 3 hours.

 

Fruit-packed Christmas Cake

 

100g dried pears, finely chopped
100g dried apple, finely chopped
150g raisins
300g sultanas
50g dried sour cherries
100g dried cranberries
50g best quality candied peel, finely chopped
40g candied stem ginger, finely chopped
¼ tsp ground cloves
2 bay leaves
2 clementines, zest and juice
150ml liqueur e.g. Cointreau, Kirsch, Cassis or Framboise
50g hazelnuts, blanched (or skins removed)
50g almonds, blanched
200g butter, unsalted
175g dark brown muscovado sugar
4 free-range eggs at room temp, beaten
250g SR flour

 

1.The night before you bake the cake, place all the prepared dry fruit, ginger, ground cloves, bay leaves, zest and juice of the clementines and the booze into a large non-reactive bowl and mix well. Take a big sniff (it's heady stuff and smells wonderful!) then cover and leave to steep overnight in a cool place.

 

2.Grease and line a 20cm cake tin. (I used an 18cm square tin) Leave the parchment protruding around the edge of the tin, standing about 5-6cm proud of the edge to protect the cake during the long cooking.  Pre-heat the oven to 125C (fan) or 150C (conventional).

 

3.Toast the nuts until golden brown, place them in a processor and pulse until they are finely chopped. Add the nuts to the fruit mixture, remove the bay leaves, mix well and put 350g of the fruit and nut mixture back into the processor. Blend to a thick paste.

 

4.Beat the sugar and butter together until the sugar has dissolved then slowly combine the eggs, beating well after each addition. Fold in the flour, then stir in the paste and the rest of the fruit and nut mixture.

 

5.Spoon the mix into the tin and level the surface well. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 2-2½ hours. Check the cake by inserting a skewer or knife into the centre and see that it comes away clean.

 

 

6.Leave the cake in the tin to cool then remove, leaving the parchment in place, and wrap tightly in foil until the big day.

 

7.This cake is very versatile, it will take any kind of finish you like from a simple glaze to draping in fondant so let your imagination guide you!

Roasted Root Vegetable Gratin

I was writing out menus and shopping lists for Christmas the other day when I found myself mulling over the question of what to do with the leftover veg from lunch on Christmas Day. Sure… there’s always bubble and squeak; we’ve all been there and done that. But what about something a little different to have with your cold nut roast next day…such as a roasted root vegetable gratin? Ha, now there’s an idea!

Well, in the interests of research and not having any leftover veg about my person, I cooked a small pile of roasted roots yesterday and made a damn fine root veg gratin which we had for dinner last night. It was delicious; in fact, it was so good that we shamelessly polished off the lot between us before I'd even cooked the sausages that were supposed to go with it! Fact is, this can be used as a one-pot main course or, in smaller quantities, a side dish to a 'main event'.

The veg kept their individual flavours nicely and underneath the crispy topping there was just enough mustardy creaminess to bring the whole thing together; I will definitely be doing the same again on Boxing Day.

Actually, I’m really looking forward to Boxing Day, I always enjoy it a lot more than the whole palaver of Christmas Day – it’s so much more relaxed once all the fevered expectancy of the big day is over. A plate of nibbles, a bowl of nuts and a DVD and I’m a happy bunny. I'm easily pleased.

250g carrots
250g parsnips
200g celeriac
200g small new potatoes
2 medium onions
2tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dried thyme
ground black pepper
4 tbsp crème fraiche
1 dsp grainy mustard
60g breadcrumbs
75g mature cheddar
25g pine nuts

Peel the carrots, parsnips and celeriac; cut into bite-size chunks. Cut the potatoes in half or quarters if they’re a bit big. Peel the onions and cut into eighths through the root.

Put all the veg into a large freezer bag with the olive oil, thyme and a few grinds of black pepper; hold the end securely closed and shake to coat the veg all over. Tip into a large roasting tin and roast at 200C for about 25 minutes.

(Obviously, if you're cooking this with leftovers, you can skip the instructions above)

Mix the crème fraiche and grainy mustard together in a large bowl then add the cooked veg and mix well to coat. Tip the mustardy veg into an ovenproof dish; grate the cheese then mix the breadcrumbs, cheese and pine nuts together and scatter evenly over the veg.

Bake at 200C for about 15 minutes until golden and crispy.

Fruit & Nut Christmas Pudding Loaf

It’s the 1st of December! I’ve opened the first door on my Advent calendar and the outside lights are up, although they haven’t been turned on yet. We couldn’t get Jessie J to do our switch-on, she’s too busy apparently (!), so the honour will fall to Mr Simply Veg.

I’m only cooking for the two of us on the big day this year and I’d already decided I was going to do Cranberry and Apricot Sponge Puds for our dessert… then I saw this recipe on one of the regular email alerts I get from GoodFood which threw my decision out of the window. It seems such a good idea to cook a Christmas pudding in a loaf tin that I wonder why I’ve never seen it done before.

I didn’t want to be disappointed so I had a dry run yesterday. I roughly halved the recipe and cooked it in a 1lb loaf tin; I also changed some of the ingredients. I’m not keen on glacé cherries but I love preserved ginger and nuts; I also dropped the amount of mixed spice but added ground ginger and a touch of  ground cloves to warm it up a little bit.

It cut into eight decent slices, six of which were put in the freezer, and we had a slice each with custard after dinner last night. Well, we had to try it out, didn’t we?! I’m pleased to say it was just right, not stodgy and much lighter than the traditional pudding, fresher tasting and really fruity. I have a feeling it will form part of many of our Christmases to come. I didn’t make the accompanying sauce from the original recipe – it would have been a sweetness overload for us but I leave that up to you.

200g dried mixed fruit
2 balls of preserved ginger in syrup, chopped
½ a small Bramley apple (about 75g) grated
grated zest of an orange
75ml apple juice
2 tbsp brandy
70g butter
50g dark muscovado sugar
1 large egg, beaten
45g self-raising flour
50g white breadcrumbs
1 tbsp syrup from the ginger jar
½ tsp mixed spice
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
pinch of ground cloves
20g toasted mixed nuts, roughly chopped

Put the dried fruit, chopped ginger, grated apple, orange zest, apple juice and brandy into a largish bowl; give it a good stir, cover with clingfilm and leave overnight.

Next day, cream the butter and sugar then stir in the rest of the ingredients including the soaked fruit and any remaining juice. Put the mixture into a 1lb loaf tin lined with bakewell paper then put the loaf tin into a roasting tin.

Turn the oven on to 180C or 160C fan. Boil a full kettle. Put a foil ‘lid’ loosely over the loaf tin, scrunching up the sides a bit to make it stay put, then pour a couple of centimetres of boiling water into the roasting tin. Place the whole thing carefully in the oven.


Having halved the recipe this is where I had to use a bit of guesswork. I cooked mine for 25 minutes at 160C fan then I turned the oven down to 140C and cooked it for another 55 minutes. No two ovens are the same, so test with a skewer to make sure it's cooked through.

Serve with cream, custard, brandy butter or whatever takes your fancy.

Makes 8 slices

Porcini and Chestnut Roast

There seems to be 1001 Christmas magazines around at the moment – every one of them promising the “Best Ever Christmas”...! They can't all be right, surely? The only one I’ve bought this year is the BBC Good Food Vegetarian Christmas; it’s OK but there’s nothing in there that makes me go “Wow – I must make that!”

I always pick up any free food magazines when I’m in a supermarket, though, just in case there’s something in there worth trying. There rarely is, actually, so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw a recipe for a Christmas stuffing in a Waitrose mag which looked like it had possibilities. It was listed as a stuffing but I thought it would convert, with a few tweaks and additions, into a tasty nut roast; so I changed some of the ingredient proportions, then added more mushrooms and a smidge of lemon to sharpen it up a bit and this is the result.

We had some for dinner last night with jacket potatoes and a tomato salad and I have to say it was really rather good; not the sort of thing I usually do for a midweek meal but it made a nice change and will definitely go on my list of 'keepers'. It'd be good for a Sunday lunch if served with all the usual suspects and, although I’m planning on serving Nut Roast Wellington for Christmas Day, I think it’s worth keeping this up my sleeve as an alternative.

1 medium onion, finely chopped
150g chestnut mushrooms, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1tbsp olive oil
40g dried porcini
250g ciabatta breadcrumbs
300g vac-packed chestnuts
75g grated parmesan-style cheese
handful of chopped parsley
1 egg
1 tsp Marigold Stock powder
grated zest and juice of half a lemon

Put the ciabatta breadcrumbs in a large mixing bowl. Soak the porcini in 250mls of boiling water for 10 minutes then strain, reserving the soaking liquid; chop finely and add to the breadcrumbs.

Sauté the onion and mushrooms in the olive oil for 5 minutes; add the garlic and cook for another couple of minutes then add the veg to the mixing bowl.

Roughly chop the chestnuts, leaving some of the pieces quite chunky, and add to the bowl along with the cheese and parsley.

Mix the reserved porcini liquid with the beaten egg, stock powder, lemon zest and juice; pour over the breadcrumb mixture and stir really well. Spoon into a lined 2lb loaf tin and bake at 180C for 50-60 minutes.

Allow to cool for 15 minutes before cutting into thick slices to serve.

Mushroom and Sherry Sauce

Is it a Sauce or is it a Gravy? Who knows …who cares? All I can say with any certainty is it’s damn tasty and will go very nicely with our Nut Roast Wellington on Christmas Day.

I was planning to do my usual gravy on the big day but I happened to see a recipe by Gordon Ramsey (I really can’t stand that man!) on the net recently which was served with a mushroom sauce. It set me thinking and this is the result; a rich, flavoursome sauce or, possibly, gravy which is perfect for those times when you want something a bit more special to complement the centrepiece of a celebratory meal. Actually, this was so gorgeous, it was all I could do not to eat it by the spoonful!

25g dried porcini

25g butter

1 red onion, roughly chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

200g chestnut mushrooms, roughly chopped

1 tbsp flour

500ml stock

3 tbsp sherry

1 dsp tomato paste

½ tsp dried thyme

Soak the porcini in 100mls of hot water for 20 minutes, then drain them over a small bowl reserving the soaking liquor; roughly chop the porcini and set aside.

Melt the butter in a largish pan and sauté the onion for five minutes; add the chestnut mushrooms and garlic and cook for another five minutes. Stir in the flour and cook for a couple of minutes then pour in the stock and the reserved porcini liquor and stir well then add the sherry, tomato paste, thyme and porcini. If the flour goes lumpy, ignore it; you’ll be blitzing it later, anyway. Bring to the boil, stirring; turn the heat down to a simmer, pop a lid on, and let it bubble gently for fifteen minutes. Blitz with a stick blender until smooth, adding a little more stock if necessary to bring it to a consistency you're happy with.

You can freeze this until needed then defrost and reheat thoroughly before serving.

Decorated Christmas Cake

Here we are…the finished article! As you can see, I decorated my Christmas cake at the weekend and, though I say it myself, I think it looks pretty good.

I’m not very good at Royal icing; in fact, I don't think I've flat iced a cake in my life. (I can do you a rough snow-scene with the obligatory plastic robin to complete the effect, though!) I don’t much like ready-to-roll fondant type icing, it always reminds me of children’s playdoh in both appearance and taste, so I went for a layer of marzipan with a topping of nuts and apricots with an apricot and brandy glaze; easy but effective.

1 18cm square rich fruit cake
white marzipan

a little icing sugar

3 tbsp apricot jam

1 tbsp brandy

soft dried apricots

whole brazils

whole pecans or walnuts

ribbon

Make the glaze by heating the jam and brandy gently in a small pan until the jam melts, then rub the mixture through a sieve with the back of a spoon. Using a pastry brush, paint the top of your cake generously with the glaze; roll out the marzipan to a depth of about 0.5cm on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar and cut to size using the base of your cake tin as a guide. Lay the marzipan on top of the cake and brush with more glaze.

Arrange the fruit and nuts on the marzipan, pressing them in lightly (I’m sure you’ll be more artistic than me!) and brush again with the apricot glaze.

Tie a ribbon around the outside of the cake, stand back and feel dead chuffed with yourself!

Store in an airtight tin until needed.

Christmas Red Cabbage

Red cabbage served hot as a vegetable is something that has only found its way onto my food radar in recent years. Seems like I was well behind the curve on this one because it’s evidently quite a popular Christmas side dish, which somehow I’d managed to miss! Anyway, the fact is, whenever I’ve had it in a restaurant I’ve loved it, so I thought it was time I had a go at making it myself.

Obviously, Delia was the first port of call for a recipe and, as ever, I found just the thing I was looking for. Mind you, I was a bit sceptical when I found the cooking time was at least two hours; I wouldn’t even want to imagine what a green cabbage would look like if it was cooked for two hours (don’t go there…!) but the red variety is a lot more robust and is happy to cook long and slow.

Before it was cooked it looked a bit like a winter coleslaw but, once cooked, it transformed into a fragrant, beautifully coloured blend of textures and flavours. We both had a large spoonful with that night’s dinner of sausages and mash with onion gravy…and it went down very well indeed! The rest has been portioned up and put safely in the freezer until the big day.

I changed one thing about Delia’s recipe: I cooked mine on the hob on a very low heat rather than in the oven. It was absolutely fine and the cooking time was the same.

On a different cabbagey note:
Every year, for as long as I can remember, I’ve bought a jar of pickled red cabbage just before Christmas; I always have some on Christmas night when I put out some nibbley bits for us to pick at. Just one jar and I never eat it at any other time of the year. It’s one of those family traditions, the reason for which is lost in the mists of time, a bit like nuts in their shells which always get thrown away the week after New Year (!) or sprouts even though nobody likes them; it just wouldn’t be Christmas without them. What a strange lot we are!

Mince Pies

If you’ve read this blog before you will know that I am completely unable to make pastry. It’s not that I haven’t tried, it’s just that it doesn’t work for me….So why, you may ask, did I find myself standing in the kitchen this afternoon having yet another try at this seemingly impossible task?

Well, I was flicking through a couple of my old Christmas recipe books, which haven’t seen the light of day for about 20 years, when I came across one by Nanette Newman (!) which was published in 1984! Don’t ask…I have no idea why I bought it, but it probably seemed like a good idea at the time; anyway, there was a recipe in there for mince pies with this amazing sounding orange and almond pastry. I’m a fool to myself but, with much trepidation, I decided to give it a go.

I am astonished and very pleased to report that not only were the pies edible, they were really good! I think it had something to do with the pastry being more like shortbread than shortcrust. It didn’t mind my heavy handedness and it even put up with having the trimmings re-rolled. Result! Eat your heart out Heston, mine tasted better than yours!

I’ve reproduced the ingredients list here but I’ve had to re-write the instructions in my own words for copyright reasons, which is just as well, really, because I used a food processor and Nanette allegedly made the pastry by hand. No chance of me doing that; I've failed too many times before!  

275g plain flour

25g ground almonds

175g butter, chilled and diced

75g icing sugar, sifted

grated zest of ½ an orange

1 egg yolk

3-4 tbsps of orange juice

450g mincemeat

a little milk

Put the flour, ground almonds and butter in a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs; add the icing sugar and orange zest then pulse again briefly; mix the orange juice and egg yolk together, add it to the mix and pulse until the mixture forms large clumps.

Tip out onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly just until it comes together; wrap in cling-film and refrigerate for 20-30 minutes.

Roll the pastry out to the thickness of a £1 coin on a lightly floured surface and stamp out circles for the pie bases; lightly knead the trimmings into a ball, re-roll, and stamp out smaller circles for the lids. Press the bases into a bun tin, put a heaped teaspoon of mincemeat in each then press on the lids. Brush with milk and make a couple of slits in the top with a sharp knife.

Bake at 190C fan for 15 minutes until golden and sprinkle with sifted icing sugar before serving.

I made 21 pies from this, but I think you could probably get the full two dozen if you're braver than me and you roll the pastry a little more thinly.

Lovely served warm and if you happen to have a small spoonful of brandy butter to hand to tuck under the lid, so much the better.

Christmas Cake II

It’s ‘Stir-up Sunday’ today, the day when people traditionally make their Christmas puddings; we’re not having the usual sort of pud so, instead, I made my Christmas cake.

(I've just noticed that the whole hazelnuts look like little pebbles on the surface of the cake; too bad, no-one will see them when the marzipan is in place!)

Last year I made Nigel Slater’s small fruit cake; it was really nice, good texture and lighter than most rich fruit cakes I’ve tasted. However, we both agreed that a larger cake was needed to last the two of us through December, so I have to confess I’ve fiddled with the recipe a bit and I’ve also scaled it up somewhat to make an 18cm square cake.

I don’t really have a sweet tooth, but I do like a piece of cake with a cuppa of a winter’s afternoon. If I can combine it with a bit of present wrapping and maybe a Christmas song or two on the radio, so much the better!

675g mixed dried fruit (along with the usual vine fruits I included some dried cranberries, chopped preserved ginger and chopped dried apricots)

3 tbsp brandy

2 tbsp Cointreau

grated zest and juice of an orange

190g unsalted butter

100g light muscovado sugar

90g dark muscovado sugar

3 large eggs

100g whole hazelnuts

60g ground almonds

190g plain flour

1 level tsp baking powder

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground nutmeg

brandy for feeding the cake

an 18cm square cake tin or a 20 cm round tin if you prefer
 

Put the dried fruit into a bowl, pour over the brandy and Cointreau, then add the zest and juice of the orange. Stir the fruit well to coat it in the alcohol, cover, and set aside overnight.

Next day, line the cake tin with a double layer of non-stick baking parchment allowing the paper to come 5cm above the rim of the tin.

Turn the oven on to 160C.

Beat the butter and sugars with an electric hand mixer until light and fluffy. Whisk the eggs in a small bowl and add them, a little at a time, to the creamed butter and sugar, beating well after each addition. Add the dried fruit, ground almonds and whole hazelnuts, stirring them in well with a large spoon (don’t use the mixer now, it’ll break up the fruit).

Sift the flour with the baking powder and spices then stir it into the cake mixture, a heaped tablespoon at a time.

Spoon the mixture into the lined cake tin then bake for exactly one hour without opening the door. Turn the temperature down to 150C, quickly place a double sheet of baking paper over the top of the cake and continue cooking for a further 1½ hours.

Test by inserting a skewer into the centre of the cake, it should slide out cleanly, if it looks a bit damp or sticky give it another ten minutes in the oven and test again with a clean skewer.

Let it cool in its tin and, when it’s cold, wrap the cake and its paper in another layer of baking paper and store in an airtight tin in a cool place. Feed it with a little brandy every week till you’re ready to decorate it.

I think I'll do the same as I did last year: no icing, just a layer of marzipan topped with nuts and dried fruits with an apricot and brandy glaze.

Nut Roast Wellington

I’m planning to do this rather spiffing Nut Roast Wellington as the centrepiece of our Christmas lunch this year. Having never made one before the last thing I wanted was to put the whole thing together on Christmas morning only to find it didn’t work…! Nightmare! So, a couple of weeks ago, before I went down with the dreaded lurgy, I decided to have a trial run.

The thing I was most worried about was the pastry splitting, allowing all the filling to fall out, but I needn’t have worried; it all held together nicely and went surprisingly well.

Although the instructions look lengthy, it’s actually not as fiddly to do as I expected; it sounds much worse than it is. Now I’ve done it I feel quite confident about doing it again; in fact, I’m looking forward to it.

I shall be serving this on Christmas Day with roast potatoes, maple roast roots (parsnips, carrots and celeriac), sprouts with chestnuts and proper homemade gravy. Lovely!

Incidentally, if you're looking for something to serve with the leftover Wellington, can I suggest this Root Vegetable Gratin? It tastes brilliant and it cleverly uses up any leftover roasted roots from Christmas Day.

Nut Roast mixture:

1 onion, finely chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

200g whole mixed nuts

175g fresh wholemeal breadcrumbs

75g mature cheddar, grated

200ml stock

1 egg, beaten

½ tsp Marmite

1 tsp dried oregano

25g dried cranberries

Mushroom Duxelles:

250g chestnut mushrooms, very finely chopped

1 shallot, finely chopped

few fresh thyme leaves

25g butter

500g pack of ready-rolled puff pastry

1 egg, beaten

For the Mushroom Duxelles:

Sweat the mushrooms, thyme and chopped shallot in the butter over a very low heat until all the liquid has evaporated and you are left with an almost dry mushroom pate. Set aside to cool.

For the Nut Roast:

Sauté the chopped onion in the olive oil until golden and set aside to cool.

Grind the nuts in a food processor until reasonably fine, but still with some texture. Place the ground nuts in a large bowl; add the breadcrumbs, grated cheddar, oregano and cooled onion; mix well. (At this point you can put it in the fridge and finish it off next day, if you want.) Whisk the stock together with the beaten egg and Marmite; add this to the bowl and mix with a fork until the mixture starts to hold together. Remove about 1/3 of the mixture to a small bowl and stir in the dried cranberries.

Assembling the Wellington:

Unroll the pastry onto a lightly floured surface and roll lightly with a rolling pin to make it a bit larger.

Put the nut roast mixture with cranberries in the centre of the pastry and form into a rough rectangle about 8cm x 12cm. Spread the mushrooms duxelles over the top, then cover with the remaining nut roast mixture.

Now the fun begins! Fold the edges of the pastry over like a parcel, to completely enclose the nut roast, using the beaten egg to seal all the edges. You may need to cut off a bit of the pastry to avoid the seams being too thick. (I cut some little Christmas trees from the trimmings and stuck them on top but, quite frankly, that was a waste of time!)

Line a shallow baking tray with non-stick baking paper and, very carefully, turn the Wellington over and lay it, seam-side down, on the baking tray. Brush all over with the rest of the beaten egg and bake at 210C for 20 minutes then turn the temperature down to 180C and cook for a further 35-40 minutes until deep golden brown and cooked through. (I have a fan oven so you may need to adjust timings or temperatures a bit).

It looked a bit like a rather gorgeous loaf of bread when it came out of the oven! Allow to cool for about 20 minutes before cutting in thick slices to serve.

Serves 4 with lots of lovely leftovers to pick at later! It's also fabulous cold with chutney and salads on Boxing Day.


Quick update:  Last year I decided to go down the route of making a plait. To be honest, it was much easier and quicker than the original version and it was just as yummy.

All I did was lay the ready-rolled puff pastry on a floured baking sheet, put the same filling as above length-ways down the centre third, then cut the pastry either side into an even number of strips slightly on the diagonal; brush the strips with beaten egg then fold over the filling, making sure you tuck the ends in neatly. Brush the whole thing with more beaten egg and bake as above. 

And there you go - you have yourself a gorgeous golden Christmas Nut Roast Plait!

Christmas Nut Roast

Just one more post about festive cooking (until next year!)

This isn’t the greatest picture of my Christmas Nut Roast but I’m sure you get the idea; I couldn't hang around taking pics because I wanted to dive in to my lunch! I made the most amazing gravy to go with it and believe me, I’ve tried more than a few recipes over the years. This one is by far the best; give it a go, you won’t be disappointed. I've put a link for it after the recipe.


Loaf mixture:
½ a large onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
200g whole mixed nuts
175g fresh wholemeal breadcrumbs
75g mature cheddar, grated
200ml stock
1 egg, beaten
½ tsp Marmite
½ tsp dried oregano

Filling:
½ a large onion, finely chopped
100g finely chopped mushrooms
1 tbsp olive oil

Sauté half an onion in oil until golden. Grind the nuts in a processor, not too finely. Stir the Marmite into the hot stock and allow to cool. Combine all the dry loaf ingredients, add the stock, sautéed onion and beaten egg and mix well. The mixture should be fairly slack. Sauté the remaining half of the onion and the mushrooms together until golden. Line a 1lb loaf tin with baking parchment; put half the loaf mixture into the tin, cover with the onion and mushroom mixture and finish with the rest of the loaf mixture. Bake at 180C for 45 minutes, or until golden brown.

Serve with roast potatoes, vegetables of choice and veggie gravy. Also nice cold (if there’s any left!) with chutney or salad and it makes a killer sandwich with Dijon mustard and a pickled onion on the side!

Serves 4

http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/annas-famous-onion-gravy-recipe-257

The Big Day!

December 25th

May your nut roast be sumptuous
and your parsnips be plump,
May your mash and your gravy
have never a lump.
May your pud be delicious
and your pies take first prize.
And may your Christmas dinner
not fatten your thighs!!


☆¸.•*''*♥☆♥*''*•.¸☆ Merry Christmas ☆¸.•*''*♥☆♥*''*•.¸☆


(....to my reader!)

5* Brandy Butter

Just a quick post to give you the recipe for Brandy Butter. This is one of those things that I always thought I didn't like, probably because I'd only had the shop-bought version where they use cheap butter and even cheaper brandy to mask the taste of the cheap butter!

This version, however, is in a different league entirely. Trust me, a small (or a large!) spoonful of this melting over a warm mince pie is truly heaven on a plate...


125gms good unsalted butter
125gms light Muscovado sugar
5 tbsp decent brandy (if you wouldn't drink it neat, don't use it here!)

Take the butter out of the fridge a couple of hours before you make this, then beat it with a hand mixer until it's almost white. Beat in the sugar and continue beating for about five minutes until the graininess has gone. Add the brandy a little at a time beating well after each addition. That's it, job done.

Pile into a small serving bowl, clingfilm and keep refrigerated until needed. Serve very cold to contrast with the warmth of the pie.

This will keep for at least three weeks in the fridge, always assuming you don't have a little spoonful every time you open the fridge door!!

Christmas Mincemeat

I started making my own mincemeat donkey’s years ago; it’s so simple and so much nicer than shop-bought which is usually far too sweet and syrupy for me. I used to use Delia’s recipe but over the years I’ve sort of evolved my own recipe to suit our taste. I’ve found the addition of preserved ginger really peps up the flavour and I love the citrus tanginess of the extra lemon.

I used a mug for measuring all the ingredients one year because the bowl for my old-style kitchen scale was in the dishwasher; it worked out perfectly well and I’ve stuck with it ever since….if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!


4 mugs of mixed dried fruit
4 balls of preserved ginger in syrup, finely chopped
½ mug dried apricots, chopped
1 mug veggie suet
1 mug dark Muscovado sugar
1 large Bramley apple, peeled, cored and grated
1 whole nutmeg, grated
grated zest and juice of 1 orange
grated zest and juice of 2 lemons
½ mug of brandy


Mix everything except the brandy in a large ovenproof bowl. Cover with a cloth and leave to stand overnight. Next day put the uncovered bowl into the oven at 110C for an hour. Remove from the oven and allow to cool, stirring occasionally so that the melted suet gets mixed in throughout the mincemeat. Once cool, add the brandy and mix really well again then pot up into sterilised jars.

If you put some dinky little covers on the jars this is nice to give to friends as Christmas gifts.

Cranberry and Apricot Christmas Puddings

I thought I'd have a go at an alternative Christmas pudding. Not everyone likes the rich, fruity cakes and puds that are traditional at Christmas. There are plenty of different cakes to be found, but a pudding is a trickier proposition; obviously you could choose from any number of desserts, but I do feel that Christmas lunch demands a 'proper' pudding, preferably hot and not just something as an afterthought, to continue the sense of occasion. So, if you have someone in your family, as I have, who won’t touch the usual Christmas Pudding, this could be the very thing.

I couldn’t find a recipe that was exactly what I wanted so I decided to adapt my usual sponge pudding recipe. I thought I’d have a couple of dry runs to get the flavour and texture right and I’m so glad I did…..the first attempt was truly awful! I have no idea what I did wrong but instead of being light, fluffy and fruity they were heavy, doughy and horrible and they went straight into the compost bin!

The second try was (thankfully!) much more successful; I shall definitely be using this one at Christmas. I’ve substituted the normal dried fruit for cranberries and chopped apricots and I've also added a soupçon of nutmeg and some orange zest to give that familiar fragrant Christmassy flavour.

These puds look so cute with their little jewels of cranberry and apricot studding the surface; they taste pretty good, too.

Little Cranberry and Apricot Sponge Puds

175g softened butter
140g light muscovado sugar
1 orange, zest only
2 beaten eggs

¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

175g self-raising flour
50g dried cranberries
50g chopped dried apricots

You’ll also need 6 individual metal pudding basins, well-buttered and with a disc of baking parchment in the base.

Place the first six ingredients into a large bowl and mix together – don’t overmix, you want to just combine them until no trace of flour can be seen. Stir in the dried fruit then divide the mixture between the greased tins; cover the tins tightly with a square of baking parchment and a double layer of foil folded well down over the rim.

Place in a steamer and steam the puds for 45-55 minutes. When cooked, run a knife round the edge, turn out and serve with pouring cream or custard.

If you like, cook these on Christmas Eve, turn them out of their tins, allow to cool and put them in an airtight container. Microwave each pudding for about 30 seconds before serving.

Serves 6

Christmas Cake I

It’s that time of year again when Christmas cakes, puddings and mincemeat are on everyone’s mind. I'll post in a day or two about an alternative Christmas Pud and I’ve already made my mincemeat; so that just leaves the cake.

After making a cake every Christmas for about 30 (!) years, in recent years I haven’t bothered. We used to get to the middle of January and still have half a huge cake staring at us, so it kept getting thrown away. Trouble is, I really missed making a cake for Christmas; there’s something about it….soaking the fruit in brandy, grating the nutmeg, double lining the tin… all the silly little rituals that I absolutely love.

So this year I’ve made a cake once again! I’ve always made Delia’s recipe in the past, but I came across a recipe by Nigel Slater for 'A Small, Rich Fruitcake'; the word ‘Small’ jumped out at me…

I rarely follow a recipe to the letter (actually, I rarely follow recipes at all!) but in this case I broke the habit of a lifetime and did exactly as instructed. Things weren’t quite as small as I thought they’d be; in fact, there was so much mixture that I made two cakes in a 1lb loaf tin and a 15cm round tin! However, they look gorgeous and they smell just as they should….of Christmas.

I’m not a big fan of icing so I think I’ll just put a layer of marzipan on the top and then decorate with fruit and nuts and an apricot glaze. In the meantime my little cakes are tucked up snugly in an airtight tin in the pantry, being fed a little brandy from time to time just to keep them happy….


Incidentally, I have a plan to make Christmas last a bit longer this year - I’m thinking in terms of a foodie ‘Advent Calendar’ whereby we have a really nice little something to eat every day leading up to Christmas.

You see, even if you include Christmas Eve, there’s only three days in which to cram all that lovely food so, since there are far too many things I like, the best thing seems to be to spread it over a longer period.

It might be something along the lines of some lovely cheeses, crusty bread and pickles on the 1st; a mince pie and some mulled fruit punch on the 2nd; Not Sausage rolls and homemade chutney on the 3rd; a piece of Stollen with coffee on the 4th…..are you getting the idea?

If enough people spread the word I think this is something that could catch on….well, it certainly will in this house!