Last minute edible Christmas gifts.

The last couple of days have been devoted to making edible gifts. I'm glad because I foolishly ventured out to the shops today and it was so stressful that I made a hasty retreat back into the peace of my kitchen. I would rather make last minute gifts than do last minute shopping.

So here are some of the gifts that I've been making, along with my girls.

Chilli Jam. 

This is delicious and I used Nigella's recipe.. It's super easy to make, you just need some chilli, fresh red peppers, apple cider vinegar and jam sugar.

I also made some Courgette and Chilli Relish. I kind of made up the recipe and I foolishly didn't write things down as I went along, but I do remember that it had courgettes obviously, along with one fresh chilli, two onions, two fresh peppers, about 350ml of apple cider vinegar, a generous amount of caster sugar, a teaspoon of cumin seeds, a teaspoon of curry powder, some black pepper and a bit of salt, oh and some ground arrowroot to thicken it, (or perhaps a teaspoon of cornflour instead). It really is delicious, I was genuinely surprised at how nice it was and it tastes amazing in a cheese sandwich!

I then made some Cranberry Sauce (Nigella's recipe) and some Cranberry and Orange Marmalade, which was basically some of the cranberry sauce mixed in with some of the marmalade batch from a ready made 'mamade' tin. (You simply add water and sugar to the mamade orange mush, according to the instructions, boil it and you have marmalade!)

 The Cranberry and orange marmalade is another pleasant surprise. It really is delicious on toast and adds a festive twist to breakfast.

I wrote about my Christmas cake mishaps in my last post. I took one of the rather overdone christmas cakes and cut off the burnt bits and marzipanned it. I then had a brainwave that I could cut it into four pieces and give them as individual iced mini christmas cakes. (It would have been easier to do this before I covered the cake in marzipan as I then had to re-marzipan the cut edges.)

 My daughter Daniella helped with the icing of the mini cakes. I think she ended up with more icing on her!

Here are the finished mini Christmas cakes. They look so pretty with the sugar flowers, hearts and sparkles! I will wrap each one in cellophane and ribbon.

Lastly I roped the girls into making cookies as another gift. They made heart shaped cookies and we will put them in mugs with hearts on them, and some heart shaped dishes and wrap them in cellophane and ribbon. The cookies are Cinnamon Shortbread.

Wishing you and your loved ones a very Happy Christmas filled with very much love.

xxx

Christmas makes and bakes.

I do love this time of year.

I love the twinkly lights and the general candlelit cosiness.

 I love making gifts and all the creativity that goes on.

(I can't post about everything I've made, else the surprise will be ruined.)

My love for felt is continuing into the Christmas season. I love these make up bags using my handmade felt panels and flowers. I made this bag for my daughter's friend and she has already received it so I can post it here.

Felted soaps are a great gift idea and are super easy to make last minute if you have some wool roving to hand (I mean who does, but you never know!)..You simply wrap the wool round the soap in your desired design, secure it in some netting, or old cut off tights, wet it and work it in your hands until it has felted. I learnt how from Youtube and there are lots of videos to show you how if interested.

Here are some of the felted soaps I made. They are a really pretty addition to bath time and the wool is a lovely and gentle exfoliant.

Christmas time is always filled with lots of baking. I always moan about it at the time, but I must love it because I end up doing lots of baking and christmas wouldn't be the same without it.
 Here are some of the bakes for my daughter's school Christmas fair.

Gingerbread cupcakes topped with members of a very happy cookie family.

Christmas tree cookies (Vanilla shortbread).

Star topped Vanilla cupcakes.

I made these for my daughter Kezia's birthday this week and she took these in to share with her class at school.

Making a Christmas cake for our friend Patrick has become part of my Christmas ritual. The trouble is, every single year, of which this is the 3rd, I have burnt my first attempt in the oven. I always forget that my oven works at a much higher temperature than it says, and so I gullibly follow the instructions and end up with a burnt cake, and then have to make another one. My family very kindly eats the burnt one and say how much they like slightly burnt christmas cake. I think they genuinely do, because that's all they've ever had!
This year I burnt the first two attempts at Patrick's cake, because I got over confident and put two cakes in the oven at the same time, one for him and one for us, and they both ended up burnt. So I had to make another one yet again!
Anyway, here is Patrick's cake this year. I hope he likes it. It was made with lots of dried fruit, brandy and very much love.

To end, I shall write about Pomanders. Pomanders are oranges studded with cloves. I make them every Christmas to decorate the Christmas table, but also because making them is a very good stress reliever. There's something about the repetitiveness of it and the gorgeous scent of cloves and orange that is really good for the soul, especially when things start to feel really hectic.

Wishing you much joy this Christmas season.

Very much love.

xxxx