On the Second Treat of Christmas...

Magic* Christmas Star Cookies!

*Not actually magic

In order to use up the ingredients I already had from the mince pie pastry, I decided to make some Christmas cookies. The best thing about Christmas cookies is that you can also use them for decorations on your tree (provided you don't have a greedy chocolate Labrador who will scoff anything that smells remotely edible - even scented candles). Using them for decorations is a great way to save money and it's fun to get your kids to do. Mine may look like kids have helped me, but that was in fact, just me. Being a bit special.

Unfortunately my supermarket had run out of festive cookie cutters and I still have no scales.  But for decoration I came across this little beauty.

Shimmer Spray. By Dr.Oetker. In Gold and Silver.

This is so awesome, I am tempted to spray it on all my food just to make it feel more Christmassy.

So to make your own cookies... 

*Base recipe from BBC Good Food

Ingredients:

140g Icing Sugar

375g Flour

1 Egg Yolk

250g Butter

A good splash of vanilla extract or the seeds from a vanilla pod.

1tsp Ground Mixed Spice - for a bit of festivity.

For Decoration:

Icing Sugar

A splash of water

Food colouring of choice as well as some festive decorations (glitter spray, silver/gold balls, sprinklies)

Method

• Put all of the ingredients except for the flour into a bowl and wazz up (for definition please see Jamie Oliver's official dictionary) with a hand whisk until it's formed a smooth paste.
• Sieve in the flour and mix together to form a smooth dough.
• Place in the fridge and leave for 30 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 5.
• Roll out the pastry on a icing sugared surface until it is a couple of cms thick. 
• Cut out your cookies using a cookie cutter or with a knife if you want them to look extra special, like I did.
• Place them on a greased baking tray (or use greaseproof paper) and pop them in the oven for 10-12 minutes.
• Once they are a light, golden brown, get them out of the oven and leave them on the side to cool.
• When the cookies have cooled, the decoration funtimes begin!
• Mix up some icing sugar with water and your chosen food colouring and spread it liberally over your cookies. Sprinkle sprinkly sparklies over the cookies and then the shimmer spray for a festive glitz. Obviously feel free to decorate your cookies however you like! I used red icing with sprinklies and silver shimmer spray. You could do a mixture of red and gold/green and silver trees and stars.

I happily munched on my cookies whilst drinking a nice hot mug of mulled wine and watching Elf / present wrapping. With only 5 work shifts left until I'm off for Christmas, I'm starting to feel very festive. Especially with a belly full of sweet treats and the big pile of presents under the tree!

On the First Treat of Christmas.... The Mince Pie Method

Mince Pies. Who could have their Christmas without a mince pie? Served best warm with cream or brandy butter, they are a full fat treat. These little bastards definitely help with the Christmas fat rolls. I was never a fan of mince pies when I was younger as I had a bit of an issue with dried fruit and thought pastry was a bit rubbish. We all make mistakes though...

You can get all sorts of mince pies now. Giant ones, lattice top, iced top, brandy filled, ones that smell like pine trees and are made from puff pastry... but there's nothing like a home made mince pie. Or so you would imagine. I've never actually had a homemade mince pie. I know, isn't that terrible? I was a deprived child.

And so, I've attemped to make a batch myself. On nervously first starting to bake, I realised that our scales had completely broken... excellent. There was no knowing how badly these were going to turn out.

 

Here they are. The beauties.

They were actually incredible. I was extremely proud of myself.

So now you want to make your own version? Well! This is how you do it...

Georgie Porgie's Mighty Mince Pies

Ingredients (without measurements as I had no scales)

For the Pastry:

An amount of Plain Flour (more flour for more pies)

An amount of Butter

A smaller amount of Golden Caster Sugar

A pinch of Salt

2 tsps Ground Mixed Spice

The zest of 1 Orange

2tsps Fresh Orange Juice

For the Filling:

1 jar of Mincemeat
1 jar of Clippy's Apple, Rhubarb and Ginger Conserve


For the top:

4 tsps Cinnamon
6 tsps Golden Caster Sugar



How it's Done

• Preheat your oven to Gas Mark 6 or the other equivalents (Google it).
• Sieve the flour into a bowl and add the butter (cut up into little bits). You need to make sure your butter is cold to get a good pastry and as there are no measurements, there needs to be enough butter for the consistency to feel buttery once you've combined the butter and flour. If that's makes sense...
• Use your fingertips to crumble the flour and butter together, to form breadcrumbs. This is the part when you have to make sure it feels buttery enough. No one wants a dry mince pie.
• Add the sugar, salt, spices and orange zest and use a wooden spoon to mix it all together.
• Add the orange juice and mix this in. The dough should start to come together.
• Get your hands in and press the dough together into a ball. Work it a bit with your hands to add some elasticity.
• Grease a bun or muffin tin.
• Take walnut sized balls of pastry and press them out into circles. Press these into the tin to form the bases.
• Spoon a tsp of mincemeat into each pie as well as a tsp of conserve.
• Roll out circles to cover the tops of the pies. Press the lids on, gently push the edges down to meet the pie base.
• Prick each pie top with a fork and sprinkle with a little sugar and cinnamon.
• Put them in the oven for 20 mins to bake. 
• After 20 minutes they should be a nice golden brown so take them out and leave them to cool.

Now you have some lovely tasty mince pies. Make the most of it whilst they're warm!

A Georgie Porgie Christmas

It's no secret that I bloody love Christmas time. It is the best excuse to eat way too much festive food and drink too many warm mulled wines. But it's okay, because it's Christmas and that's what everyone does. I have been thoroughly enjoying the seasonal spirit this week despite it being well over a week until I finish work for the holidays. I popped down to Bournemouth to visit my friends and family and partook in some much needed Christmas activities. These mainly included shopping and eating large Bratwursts.

Celine loves a big sausage.

Bratwursts and other german fayre (such as Krakeurs) have become staple in my Christmassyness... In Bournemouth every year, we get a German market come to visit at Christmas time that sells rip off Louis Vuitton bags and dodgy looking animal hats. The real reason anyone comes to see the German Market is for the sausages, the crepes and the cosy Gluhwein cabin that appear. I really can't say I feel festive until I've nommed one of those delicious Bratwursts and had an extortionate mug of gluhwein that tastes a bit like watery ribena (managed to avoid this part this year and just stuck with the sausage. I will be visiting Lidl for my Gluhwein).

And so now I have begun my festive countdown, I have decided to give myself a little bit of a challenge to try and complete before the big day itself.

I will be making 12 treats of Christmas! 12 traditionally christmassy things with my own slight twist on them to challenge my (mainly poor baking) skills. This way, I'm training my stomach to deal with the epic meal I will be feeding it at Christmas lunch.

So check back for the first of our festive treats tomorrow when I take on Mince Pies. And with my baking track record, there's no knowing how they will turn out! Reindeer hoofs crossed everyone!!