If you're in tier three like me, constantly looking for things to do around the house to get you in the festive mood, or, are lucky enough to be in one of the lower tiers but just enjoy baking (especially Christmas themed baking!) here are three of my tried and tested, favourite festive bakes that I love to make around the Christmas period.
1. Christmas pudding cupcakes
These cupcakes are so easy to make but they look so cute and effective!
If, like me, you are not the biggest fan of Christmas pudding in Christmas day (and often find yourself reaching for the trifle or the tiramisu instead) you can bake chocolate cupcakes and they look so effective! If you can't get enough of the pudding, I'm sure you could use a Christmas pudding cake recipe to create mini Christmas puddings, which would be even more festive and just as cute!
I just made a classic cupcake recipe and added cocoa powder to the mix, mostly to achieve the dark brown colour but also to add an amazing chocolatey flavour! Once they had baked fully, I then let them cool fully before melting a full bar of white chocolate and drizzling an abstract splodge in the middle of each one (they don't have to be perfect!). Top with some holly and berries sprinkles (I found mine in Tesco and they are perfect for the job!!) and you're finished!
So quick and so easy, made me feel really Christmassy!
Recipe difficulty: Really Easy
2. Gingerbread and White Chocolate Chunk Cookies
I, for one, love gingerbread and could eat it by the gallon, but my parents aren't too keen on the strong spicy flavour. Therefore, I made it my mission to find a cookie that still had a warming flavour for the winter, but wasn't too overpowering in spice.
I found these Gingerbread and White Chocolate Chunk Cookies from Gingerbread NYC Cookies! - Jane's Patisserie to be a perfect balance. (I will link the recipe for you to try!)
They were so easy to make and smelled so delicious throughout the bake (had to try and stop myself from consuming the whole bowl of dough!!).
They are a perfect gooey chocolatey texture, best eaten when straight out of the oven to enjoy the melted chocolate inside but also just as good if kept in the fridge for the next day (if you've got the willpower).
My only tip would be, don't skimp on the freezing time for the dough as the cookies will spread and you will get less of a chunky wedge of cookie, also, for a smaller cookie (these were the circumference of the span of my hand) I would weigh each cookie to be 60g instead of 120g (this means you will have double the amount of cookies too!!!)
Recipe difficulty: Easy
3. Baileys & White Chocolate Fudge
So... this is my only photo of a bit of a failed attempt at making fudge... who knew it would be so unpredictable!
The recipe I used included 100ml Baileys, 350g Demerara Sugar, 300ml Double Cream, 150g Golden Syrup, 100g Salted Butter and 100g White Chocolate.
Melt all of the above, excluding the chocolate, in a pan on a high heat until the mixture is bubbly and hot. Take off the heat and stir in the White Chocolate. Now, this I'm assuming is when it is meant to harden into a lovely Fudge-y consistency as it chills.
Mine, however, stayed in the same slightly runny state as before. Even when I fridged and freezer-ed it overnight. (It does taste amazing though if you try to eat it off a spoon!)
After some googling I realised that I probably didn't heat it enough so the sugar couldn't set properly. I also have my suspicions that the copious amount of Baileys that I slogged in might have something to do with it... (only 100ml? I don't know about that...)
I still think this is a really cute thing to make, and if it worked it may have been up there as my favourite festive treat! If you are taking any tips from this post, boil the fudge within an inch of its life and then take it off the heat to chill! (and maybe use a sensible amount of Baileys...)
Difficulty level: Harder than a 3 minute plank
:)) xxx