Mincemeat

I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t feel like Christmas is this weekend, perhaps because I’m still at work. I’m looking forward to having time with family and, especially, time to focus on seeking God and what His plans are for my life next year. A year that holds quite a bit of change but also some of the same. For me, Christmas is a good time to be still, to reflect, and to give my hopes and dreams to God, who loved me so much that He sent His Son to earth to live as a man and to die for my sin. Because life has been pretty busy, I’m very behind on Christmas preparations (though we have progressed enough to have a tree up!). Thankfully this mincemeat is very easy and doesn’t need to mature for ages to taste good. I’ve yet to come up with fantastic pastry to go along with the mincemeat and make awesome mince pies, so that will have to be a goal for next year. Until then, if you (like me) are doing things at the last minute and want some homemade mincemeat, why not have a go at this one? I’ve made this mincemeat for about the last four years (except last year when we went to South Africa for Christmas) and love it much more than bought mincemeat. The recipe is adapted from the Home-Made Christmas Mincemeat recipe in Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course. As usual, all the cup measurements are based on a 250 ml mug as equal to one cup. This makes about four to five smallish jars of mincemeat.

What you’ll need:

4 apples

1/2 cup suet

1 1/2 cups raisins

2 1/2 cups mixed dried fruit, sultanas and/or currents (just choose some or one of each to make up the right quantity)

200 gram pack glace cherries

1 cup dark brown sugar

Rind and juice of two oranges

Rind and juice of two lemons

1 1/2 cups flaked almonds

3 teaspoons ground mixed spice

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

3/4 cup brandy, divided into 1/4 cup and 1/2 cup

What to do:

1. Peel and core the apples and then chop them as finely as you can and then put the chopped apples in a large bowl.

2. Add all the other ingredients, except the 1/2 cup of brandy, to the bowl and stir together well.

3. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 1 (140º C or 275º F). Tip all the ingredients from the bowl into a large baking pan and put the pan in the middle of the pre-heated oven for about two hours. Stir everything in the pan around well once or twice during the cooking process.

4. After a couple of hours, remove the pan from the oven and leave aside until cool.

5. When cool, tip the mixture from the pan into a large bowl. Add the remaining 1/2 cup of brandy to the bowl and stir well.

6. Store the mincemeat in sterilised jars if you are organised (which I am not) or (like me) make mince pies straight from the bowl and then rummage around for some clean jars for the leftover mincemeat which you know will be gone before the need for sterilised storage becomes a problem.

Condensed Milk Fudge

We’re having friends round tonight for some games and a Christmas food swop. There will be lots of sugar. There will (hopefully – this really depends on my spice mixture working) be mulled wine. There will (again hopefully – I’ve yet to make them) be mince pies. There will be shortbread that I made this morning (and which did not work very well because I used too much better – that will teach me to check a recipe before making it next time). And there will be this fudge.

I was sent on the quest that resulted in this fudge yesterday, when my Mum phoned to ask if I had a good fudge recipe and I realised that all I had was a recipe, created on a day a long time ago when I had condensed milk and cream to spare (as you do…), for something that was sweet and delicious, but sadly not fudge. My quest took me to the supermarket where I bought the ingredients for that not-fudge and then continued when I got home and tweaked the not-fudge recipe to come up with this…which thankfully does taste like fudge unless, like me, you boil the vanilla one for too long and end up with something closer to Thornton’s toffee. The cup measurements below are based on a 250 ml mug as equal to one cup. This would make a great Christmas gift if you’re still looking for ideas. And one big advantage is that because this (really a cheat) recipe uses condensed milk and icing sugar you don’t need to beat it as you do for proper fudge. The vanilla and chocolate fudge recipes below are basically the same, so I’ve copied a lot of the text from one to the other. That way, if you only fancy chocolate fudge, you don’t need to keep looking at the vanilla fudge recipe. These recipes make about 20 small, thick pieces of fudge each (though I should warn those coming tonight not to expect that much – there has been some…ahem…natural wastage…).

Vanilla Fudge

What you’ll need:

1 can condensed milk

1/2 cup double cream

1/2 cup icing sugar

2 tablespoons butter

Very small pinch of salt

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

What to do:

1. Line a small pan or container (mine was about 10-15 cm by 20-25 cm) with greaseproof parchment paper. I found a small mess tin to be the perfect size for the vanilla fudge. To make me feel better for my lazy, slap-dash way of lining the tin, please also do so in a lazy, slap-dash way. Thank you!

2. Put the condensed milk, cream, icing sugar and butter into a thick-bottomed pan (ideally non-stick though mine sadly is not) and bring to the boil over a low to medium heat, stirring constantly. Keep the pan over a low to medium heat until the mixture reaches soft ball stage. During this time stir the mixture constantly. Once or twice before the mixture reaches soft ball stage, stop stirring, turn the heat quite low and put the lid on the pan and leave it for a minute or two before removing the lid and continuing to stir the mixture. This will condense some of the water which is coming off the mixture at the top of the pan, which will then run back down the sides of the pan, washing any stray sugar (which might make the fudge grainy) back into the mixture. To tell whether the mixture has reached soft ball stage (which will take quite a while – at least 15 to 20 minutes), scoop a little bit out of the pan and drop it into a container of ice-cold water (or put the spoon into the cold water) and leave it for a few seconds before testing the fudge in the container of water. When it is at soft-ball stage, you should be able to roll the scoop of fudge into a soft, pliable ball.

3. When the fudge reaches soft ball stage, remove the pan from the heat and turn off the stove. Add the vanilla essence to the pan and it beat into the mixture thoroughly with a wooden spoon. Please imagine this step – it was just too difficult to photograph.

4. Tip the fudge into the lined pan and smooth it into the corners. Using a knife dipped into hot water, mark out squares on the top of the fudge and then set aside to cool completely (if you’re lazy like me and want things to happen quickly, you’ll set it aside in the fridge, although I don’t think you’re supposed to do that).

5. When the fudge has cooled completely, tip it onto a cutting board and remove the parchment paper. Using a sharp knife, cut the fudge into squares along the lines you marked earlier. Store in layers with greaseproof parchment paper between each layer.

Chocolate Fudge

What you’ll need:

1 can condensed milk

1/2 cup double cream

1/2 cup icing sugar

2 dessertspoons cocoa powder

2 tablespoons butter

Very small pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla

What to do:

1. Line a small pan or container (mine was about 10-15 cm by 20-25 cm) with greaseproof parchment paper.

2. Put the condensed milk, cream, icing sugar, cocoa powder and butter into a thick-bottomed pan (ideally non-stick though mine sadly is not) and bring to the boil over a low to medium heat, stirring constantly. Keep the pan over a low to medium heat until the mixture reaches soft ball stage. During this time stir the mixture constantly. Once or twice before the mixture reaches soft ball stage, stop stirring, turn the heat quite low and put the lid on the pan and leave it for a minute or two before removing the lid and continuing to stir the mixture. This will condense some of the water which is coming off the mixture at the top of the pan, which will then run back down the sides of the pan, washing any stray sugar (which might make the fudge grainy) back into the mixture. To tell whether the mixture has reached soft ball stage (which will take quite a while – at least 15 to 20 minutes), scoop a little bit out of the pan and drop it into a container of ice-cold water (or put the spoon into the cold water) and leave it for a few seconds before testing the fudge in the container of water. When it is at soft-ball stage, you should be able to roll the scoop of fudge into a soft, pliable ball.

3. When the fudge reaches soft ball stage, remove the pan from the heat and turn off the stove. Add the vanilla essence to the pan and it beat into the mixture thoroughly with a wooden spoon.

4. Tip the fudge into the lined pan and smooth it into the corners. Using a knife dipped into hot water, mark out squares on the top of the fudge and then set aside to cool completely.

5. When the fudge has cooled completely, tip it onto a cutting board and remove the parchment paper. Using a sharp knife, cut the fudge into squares along the lines you marked earlier. Store in layers with greaseproof parchment paper between each layer.

Chocolate Éclair Cookies

I have not been very organised with Christmas baking this year. Usually my Mum makes Christmas cake and I make mincemeat and the Christmas puddings (primarily because I think mincemeat and Christmas puddings need more excessive amounts of cherries and nuts in them than bought versions ever supply!). However, so far this year, I’ve made nothing Christmassy. But what I have made are some far-too-more-ish cookies (though that could just be greed talking), which are based on an idea I’ve had for quite a while. My original idea was to put chopped soft caramels into the cookies which used the same or a similar biscuit (sorry – cookie for those in the States!) batter as is used for chocolate chip cookies. But, when it came to making them, I could not find soft caramels anywhere. So, I decided to use chocolate éclairs (the sweet kind not the pastry kind), which is not a bad thing at all as it introduces an element of chocolate to these cookies… If you do make them with soft caramels instead of chocolate éclairs, I’d love to hear how it works out (and where you got the caramels from!).  All the cup measurements below are based on 1 cup being equal to a 250 ml mug.

What you’ll need:

1/2 cup margarine or butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 egg

2 cups self-raising flour

Pinch salt

1 1/2- 1 1/3 cups chocolate éclairs

What to do:

1. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 5 (190º C or 375º F). Grease a couple of baking trays and set aside (or you can be lazy like me and just line them with baking parchment instead…).

2. Cream together the margarine (or butter, depending on which you use), brown sugar and vanilla essence using an electric beater.

3. Beat the egg into the creamed margarine/butter, sugar and vanilla essence with an electric beater.

4. Put the chocolate éclairs into a freezer bag and smash them into little pieces with a rolling pin (I initially tried chopping them with a knife but found the smashing method far more effective).

5. Sift the flour and salt into the bowl over the margarine/butter, sugar, vanilla and egg mixture and then tip the smashed chocolate éclairs in to the bowl. Fold the flour, salt and chocolate éclairs into the margarine/butter, sugar, vanilla and egg mixture using a spatula.

6. Gently roll the mixture, about a teaspoonful at a time, into little balls and place them well apart (at least an inch) on the greased baking trays. The dough may be a bit sticky as you roll it, so expect dirty hands!

7. Bake the cookies in the middle of the pre-heated oven until golden-brown for about 15-20 minutes. When the cookies are done, take them out of the oven and let them cool for a minute or two on the baking tray to give the melted sugar a bit of time to harden before removing from the tray and cooling on a cooling rack.

8. These seem to absorb moisture quite easily so store in an airtight container (if you don’t consume them straight away) as soon as they are cool.

A Quick Thought for the Season

If you live in Britain and go into public at least occasionally, it is hard to avoid the fact that it is December and that Christmas is rapidly approaching. For some, this season is one of joy and excitement, of family and of fun. For others it may be those things, but also a time of worry – about finding money to pay for presents, for food, for bills. Christmas can be an incredibly selfish time when it is easy to focus on oneself – my good time, the presents I wanted to be given, my chocolate brazil nuts (if you’re me and reluctant to share…). With all the focus on ‘me’ at Christmas and with all the busy-ness that this time of year brings, it is hard to see it as a season of reflection and it is easy to not think at all about what it is that Christmas is celebrating – that God sent His Son to earth to live as a man and to die as a man to pay for the sins of humankind. So here’s my question (taken from the talk at church today) – how are you planning to remember the real reason for Christmas this year?

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3: 16-17).

Roast Garlic Bread Sticks

A little while ago, in a fit of misplaced creativity I tried making a kind of Eastern/Thai-inspired bread. It was quite late in the evening on a work night and I couldn’t be bothered to wait for a yeast dough to rise, so I decided to make a soda-bread. We had some coconut, left over from my first attempt at coconut meringues (later renamed Zebra Meringues), which I added to the dough along with other ingredients like garlic and chilli. The end result was horrible – I think the baking soda and the garlic may have had a bad chemical reaction with each other, rendering my yummy-looking loaf inedible. However, the idea of using garlic as a star ingredient in bread stuck with me and a few weeks later I tried making these – roast garlic break sticks – and they were highly edible. Success – in a crunchy, tasty form! As usual, the ‘cup’ ingredients below were measured using a 250 ml mug as equal to 1 cup (perhaps I should rename this blog the 250 ml brown glass mug blog…). Don’t let the long list of instructions scare you – these are no harder to make than any other basic bread.

What you’ll need:

1 garlic bulb

2 1/2 cups plain flour

A 7 gram package of fast-action yeast

Pinch salt, plus a bit more for sprinkling on top of the bread sticks

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus a little more for greasing the pans and brushing the bread sticks with

1 cup lukewarm water

Optional – pepper and/or dried herbs to sprinkle on top of the bread sticks

What to do:

1. Put the garlic bulb in a small pan (it doesn’t have to be as small as the one I used…), drizzle it with olive oil and roast for about 40 minutes to an hour (I did this at about gas mark 5, which is 190º C or 375º F).

2. Take the garlic bulb out the oven, which you can turn off for a bit, when it is done and leave to one side for now.

3. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl, add the yeast and mix together thoroughly.

4. Cut the top of the garlic bulb and squeeze all the garlicky goodness into the bowl with the flour and yeast, then mix it in as well as you can.

5. Add the oil and water to the bowl and mix together thoroughly with a wooden spoon.

6. Tip the dough onto a clean, lightly floured surface and knead well for five to ten minutes.

7. Put the dough back into the bowl, cover the bowl with a damp tea towel (or cling film) and leave somewhere warm for 45 to 60 minutes to rise to about double its original volume.

8. When the dough has risen, tip it on to a clean, lightly floured surface and knead again for five to ten minutes.

9. Divide the dough into 15 to 20 equal portions (I went with 12 portions to start with but ended up with bread sticks that were too long for my pans – you can just play around until they look about right and approximately fit whatever baking trays you will be using) and then roll each one into a long, thin sausage shape. Brush the baking trays you will be using (ideally rectangular ones) with olive oil and then lay the dough sausages side by side on the trays, leaving at least 2-3 cm between each one. Brush each dough sausage with more olive oil and sprinkle them with salt and, if you like, pepper and/or dried herbs.

10. Cover the dough with a damp tea towel again (or lightly cover them with cling film) and leave somewhere warm again for 45 to 60 minutes to rise.

11. Just before the dough has finished rising, pre-heat the oven to gas mark 5 (190º C or 375º F). When the dough has finished rising a second time, remove the tea towel (or cling film) and bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown, in the middle of the pre-heated oven.

12. When done, remove from the oven and cool on a cooling rack before devouring with whatever tasty dips you have to hand. If you (like me) can’t wait that long, you might find they are a little bit soft in the middle whilst hot. Don’t let that worry you – they should firm up as they cool.