I find that the usual cooking at Christmas, pudding, turkey, mince pies etc etc gets a bit boring and thank goodness I no longer have the responsibility or the necessity to do this any more. I do make a cake but that is for the family and so I enjoy doing it. What I always like at Christmas, and what I used to do years ago, is make sweets and biscuits and other home cooked goodies to give to friends and that is always fun. So this year I decided to revive the practice and have made the following.
Colour on this picture is a bit weird. This is coconut ice and it is pink and white not orange. Very easy to make and deliciously sweet and crunchy.
Almond petit fours. Just so easy to make you would not believe and taste simply delicious. I had half a dozen left and have just polished them off while writing this post.
Chocolate cups. These are tricky to make as you have to melt chocolate and then coat small paper cases with layers of choc. When they are set you then peel the paper cases off and you need a steady hand. I had a few disasters but they were just eaten. Inside were chopped up cherries soaked in brandy. More chocolate poured in and then some choc cream piped on the top. Ran out of dark chocolate hence the different shades, had to use some milk in the end. Very rich and very moreish.
I also made stollen. Not sure that it was wildly successful but it tasted good even if Paul Hollywood would have turned up his nose at its appearance. I also made smoked mackeral pate and chicken liver pate which can be made ahead and kept in the freezer. Today I made up a Christmas basket which my daughter has taken with her up to London as it is a present for Helen's in laws and I wanted them to have it ahead of Christmas Day. I have kept some back for us when I arrive on Christmas Eve.
It gives me a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction to produce goodies like this and I am already thinking about Easter Eggs which I used to make as well for my children when they were small.
And, finally, I iced and decorated the Christmas cake. I was a bit tired by this time so copped out and used bought fondant icing and cut the holly leaves and berries with my special cutter.
All these sweet and biscuit recipes came from an old Good Housekeeping book of mine which is over twenty years old and still going strong.
Merry Christmas everyone!