Recipe: Christmas Cake - Stages 2 and 3

Stage 2 - Feeding the cake:

This stage of my Christmas cake making was pretty simple - feed your cake.  I made an alcohol free cake, not for any reason apart from the fact that I didn't have any brandy in the house and also loooove the flavour of earl grey.  

I dribbled a tablespoon of earl grey over the cake once a week for the 3 weeks prior to Christmas. 

Stage 2 done.

Stage 3 - Decorating the cake (the fun bit!):

I cheated with decorating the cake and have to admit that I made neither the Marzipan nor the Royal Icing.  I bought both from ASDA and am hoping (having never made a Christmas cake before)that these are as tasty as if I had made them. 

To get the marzipan to stick to the cake, and add an extra bit of Christmas flavour, heat a bit of marmalade mixed with water and brush this all over the cake.

I love the marzipan layer on an Xmas cake and have heard a good way to add a bit more is to cover the cake in a thin layer, but then add another disc of marzipan just to the top of the cake.

Once the marzipan is on it's time for the icing and making things look pretty.  I'm not a fan of royal icing so I rolled mine as thin as possible. 

A tip for the marzipan and Icing - once you have rolled it out, fold it over your rolling pin to lift it over the cake as this will prevent it from stretching too much as you lift it.

You can make your decorations as simple or extravagant as you want.  I went simple this year for my first year, with just thin icing snowflakes, glued into place with marmalade.

Christmas cake - Done!

Mince Pie Magic

There isn't much better at this time of year than homemade mince pies.  Everyone has their different approach to the mince pie: sweet pastry, puff pastry, Filo pastry parcels, lid vs no lid.

I'm a fan of everything but I do think that as you can quite easily eat several of the tasty morsels at one time sometimes a smaller idea of a lid is good.

I stick to ready made mince meat as a base and then add to it as I go.  My mince meat was a Lidl choice and I added orange zest, orange juice, finely chopped cooking apple and glace cherries.

Ingredients:

250g self raising flour

110g butter

1 egg

Pinch of salt

Method:

• Heat oven to 160C.
• Sieve flour and salt into a metal bowl.
• Rub in the butter.
• Mix the egg in a cup, then add to the flour and butter mix.
• Bring together with a metal spatula, adding enough cold water to bring together.
• Kneed briefly to bring together, then place in the fridge for 20 mins.
• Remove from the fridge, roll out, and using a round cutter, cut out the base, and place in a muffin tin.
• Fill each base with a teaspoon mincemeat.
• Cut small stars with the remaining pastry and place on the mincemeat.
• Glaze with an egg.
• Cook in the oven for 20mins. 

When you need some inspiration

I must admit I'm getting a bit stir crazy not having a job. I'm really loving the time to tidy and clean the house, make fun craft bits, do some painting and blog loads more but everyday I'm sitting in doors and I'm missing having people to talk to.

I had to get out the house and was delighted that I did as I discovered Marmalade.  This is a newly open coffee shop about 10mins walk from my house and it's lovely. I treated myself to a latte (soya as I'm trying 2 weeks without dairy) but I was sooo tempted by the lunch time pies, cakes and selection of breads.

The fact that my take out latte came in a pink cup was perhaps the most exciting thing of all! Marmelade I will definitely be visiting you again!

I feel happier this afternoon now I've seen something new and had a bit of exercise and fresh air- I almost feel like I could go for a nap!

“The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday-but never jam today"

Blackbird Tea Rooms Brighton

{7th July 2013}

This is a slightly belated post as we actually went out for afternoon tea at the Blackbird Tea Rooms, Brighton, last Wednesday.

My gorgeous sister came down to spend the day in Brighton with me, having managed to finally coordinate a day that we both had off together.  We only really had 2 agendas for the day - 1. Buy some cool clothes, 2. Eat some tasty food.  As soon as I knew Bean was coming down to see me I knew I wanted to go to Blackbird.  Having been open now for a little while I still can't believe I haven't been yet.

You step back into a little piece of history.  We had booked a table, (just as well as it was super busy), and got a lovely seat in the window upstairs.  The decor is beautiful, I am soooo going to steal the bird wall paper, and they have made a real effort to source vintage furniture and crockery.

I sometimes worry that afternoon tea can be a bit 'up itself' but there was definitely no worry of this here.  The tearooms offer a variety of dishes, cakes, and sandwiches.  The Afternoon Tea at £12.50 per person comes with your choice of one of the sandwiches, a scrummy homemade scone and jam, and a selection of cakes.  As Bean and I both picked the Afternoon Tea we decided to pick different sandwiches (egg and cress, and goats cheese) and share.

There was a really good selection of teas to accompany our food - traditional to new (rosehips and hibiscus) all served loose leaf in individual vintage teapots.

One of our favourite things of the experience was the quirky loo (an outhouse in the back yard).  Vintage photos and postcards on the walls and individual hand towels made the whole thing a bit of an experience.

I would definitely recommend the Blackbird Tearooms for anyone looking for a quirky, very tasty, inexpensive lunch.