Merry Christmas from Me!

Homemade

This is the third year of being responsible for buying presents for my family whilst seriously lacking in funds. For the third year running I am turning to the phenomenon of 'making your own presents.' Since Pinterest has gained momentum, this phenomenon has meant that slightly wonky, strange presents aren't scorned at but welcomes with open arms. So the time has come, here are my homemade pressies.

English Rose, Lavender and Coconut Soy Candles

The easiest thing I've made so far. 200g of soy wax flakes off eBay for each 330ml jam jar. Put a wick in the jam jar and hold in place with un-opened chopsticks (from your local Chinese). Heat the wax in a ban-marie or a saucepan over boiling water. Add 10-20 drops of your chosen fragrance. Bobs your uncle, instant candle.

Blackberry Brandy

I only made blackberry brandy because, as you may know, I'm a big fan of aliteration. All you have to do is get an old water glass bottle that can take a litre of liquid or a kilner jar, and fill it with about 300g of blackberries and 250g caster sugar. Shake that about a bit the get the sugar incorporated as much as possible. Fill to the top with cheap brandy - about 70cl. Shake thoroughly to make sure the sugar is dissolved. Then leave for about 3 months to let it properly infuse, shaking every week or so.

Merriment Masterclass

Christmas is the time to be merry but there are many interpretations to the term 'merry.' For me, along with the majority of Britain, merry at Christmas means champagne cocktails and wine drenched lunches until you are positively pickled in the afternoon. But I very rarely experience this kind of merriment as 'merry' in our household doesn't mean ruddy cheeked tipsiness.

The real bringer of merriment in our house - along with King's College Choir's greatest Christmas hits on repeat - is mince pies. And it's lucky my lovely mum has become such an expert. Who needs a hangover when there are trays full of mince pies to keep me going til New Year?

Mum's Mince Pies...

Packet sweet short-crust pastry
A jar of finest, nicest mincemeat
Large glug of port or brandy
Grated apple
Chopped clementines
Flaked almonds
Cubes of marzipan

• Oven to 200°C, get a cupcake or muffin tin out of the cupboard.
• Roll out pastry to a couple of millimetres thickness and cut into rounds big enough for your tin and into stars or holly leaves as toppers. Place the pastry rounds into the tins.
• Empty jar of bought mincemeat into a bowl, grate the apple in, chuck in the chopped clementines, glug in the port or brandy and give it a good mix up. Fill your pastry rounds with the mixture. Bury a square of marzipan into the pie and sprinkle flaked almonds on the top.
• Top the pie with its pastry holly leaf or star and sprinkle demarera or golden caster sugar on top.
• Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes until the pies are golden on the top.
• Serve with brandy butter.

Curiosities

An incredible collection of curiosities at Pertwee, Anderson & Gold gallery in Soho.

All I want for Christmas...

Now it's December, it's all systems Christmas agogo. I'm more excited this year for the holiday season than I have been in quite a few years; it really is going to be an excellent couple of weeks. Everything has clicked into place for the first time and, being incredibly understated and modest, my life is pretty flippin' great. As such, I don't really want anything for Christmas but if I HAD to have a present, this is what I'm coveting at the moment.

1 M.A.C Lipstick in Captive 2 Agent Provocateur Katherine bra 

3 Knitted cashmere hoody 4 Tatty Devine country mouse brooch

Brockwell Winter

Flourless Chocolate Dream

With 40 minutes before I had to be at someone's house, and tasked with creating a desert suitable for a coeliac yet good enough for the rest of the party, I donned my Heston Blumental goggle glasses on and turned to desperate experimental cooking. This constitutes throwing chocolate and ground almonds into a bowl and heating it up. Turns out random ingredient cake mixture thrown into a bowl makes the best brownies I've ever made. Gooey, stodgy, rich and chocolatey with a marzipan aftertaste. Can you get better? Definitely not.

I only managed to get a photo after the party, what you see there are the limited remains.

cake...

100g salted butter
250g dark chocolate (good quality, at least 70%)
150g icing sugar
150g ground almonds
4 eggs separated

• Preheat the oven to 180°C and line cake tin with greaseproof paper.
• Place the butter and chocolate in saucepan balanced over a pan of simmering water, keep an eye on it otherwise the chocolate will split and become grainy and bitter.
• Whisk egg yolks and icing sugar until thick and considerably paler. Whisk the egg white separately in a really clean bowl until stiff peaks form and it doesn't fall on your head if you
• Pour the melted chocolate and butter into the bowl with the egg yolks and sugar, mix in the ground almonds then immediately fold in the egg whites gently, using a metal spoon.
• Pour the cake mixture into the tin and cook in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes.

Taxidermising Hubert

If you have wandered around by blog, you will know that I have a little (some say peculiar) obsession with taxidermy; Wilfred is my most treasured possession. Rather like tattoos, I wanted to grow my collection and luckily for me taxidermy is becoming increasingly fashionable (and sadly hipster). So I hotfooted it down to the London Taxidermy Academy and taxidermised my own mouse, Hubert.

I'm not going to lie, my hands shook a lot as I peered down at the dead body and when I tried to make the first cut with a particularly blunt scalpel. Fascinating as it was to see everything in miniature, my stomach was turning and vom was perilously close to my mouth pretty much the whole time. As soon as I cut through the skull at the nose and the skin was separated from the...rest of it, you can't begin to imagine the relief. 

I wanted to do a step by step taxidermy post, but obviously when your finger deep in a mouse's perforated belly (to far?), sanitary camera usage is pretty difficult. So enjoy the photos I did take. In particular enjoy Merlin, the Academy's worse stuffed mouse ever. All legs lost, totally overstuffed, charming, jaunty and boss-eyed.

Hubert is now sitting happily next to Wilfred. I wonder what my next stuffed creature will be?

Blueberry Cake & Cream Cheese Icing

What you need.

cake...
250g unsalted butter
250g caster sugar
4 eggs
250g self-raising flour
200g blueberries
1 tsp vanilla essence

icing...
500g icing sugar
200g cream cheese
75g unsalted butter
Zest of a lemon

• To make the cakes: Combine the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add the eggs one at a time then fold in flour. 
• If you add frozen blueberries to the mixture, you will really struggle to divide the batter - so fill two/three cake tins with the mixture then sprinkle the frozen blueberries over the top, pressing them into the batter. 
• Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes at 180˚C. Allow to cool on a wire-wrack.
• Cream cheese icing is tricky so make sure all your ingredients are cold before you start and do it as fast as you can. Beat the butter and lemon zest into the icing sugar then fold the cream cheese into the mixture as carefully as you can. If it gets a bit sloppy, put into the fridge until it hardens up again. 
• Spread the bottoms of both cakes with the icing and pop one on top of the other. If they are risen on the top, just slice it off so its even otherwise you'll get an unbalanced cake. My cream cheese icing got too sloppy and it took TWO WHOLE DAYS to ice. Not ideal.
• Don't wait until you get involved and enjoy. Blueberries and cream cheese are such a good combo.