These traditional Italian biscuits are made from a combination of a caramel biscuit mix crammed full of fruit and nuts, and a thick chocolate base. Topped with edible gold decorations, they are the perfect home-made Christmas gift.
Brie & Cranberry Twists
Brie and cranberry is one of those marvellous combinations which is symbolic of Christmas. The sweet tang of the cranberry against the smooth creaminess of the brie is a very indulgent flavour to enjoy, but one that vegetarians have known about for years as a staple filling in coffee shop sandwiches.
These little crackers are a perfect treat as a canape at a party or as a light snack.
Brie & Cranberry Twists
- Makes: 2 sheets makes 6
- Preparation time: 10 minutes
- Cooking time: 10-15 minutes
Ingredients:
- ready-made filo pastry
- brie, cut into 1 inch chunks
- cranberry sauce
- melted butter
- Preheat the oven to 200°C.
- Cut the brie (straight from the fridge so it retains its firmness) into 1 inch chunks.
- Unwrap two sheets from the ready-made filo pastry. Filo pastry dries out very quickly, so return the unwanted sheets back to the packet and seal it. Have a damp tea-towel ready to drape over the filo pastry which is being used to prevent it from drying out and cracking.
- Brush one sheet of the filo pastry with the melted butter and lay the second on the top, this will help them stay together.
- Cut the pastry into sixths.
- Place a 1inch chunk of brie in the middle of each sixth, with a small dollop of cranberry sauce on top.
- Fold over the edge of the filo pastry, brushing the layers with melted butter to help them stick together.
- Turn over the pastry to the seal is on the bottom and place on a non-stick baking tray. Gently twist each end like a cracker and brush over with melted butter to glaze.
- Bake for 10-13 minutes, but check after 10 minutes.
- Leave to cool slightly before serving.
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Linking to Recipe Of The Week and Tasty Tuesdays
Cooking Ideas To Surprise Your Family This Christmas (Guest Post)
Bring some home spun-magic to Christmas day and delight and surprise the one's you love. From the present opening ritual at the crack of dawn to the adults-only wind-down supper afterwards, we let you know how to make the day go down in family history.
Rudolph Breakfast Pancakes
Surprise and delight the kids on Christmas morning with Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer pancakes. The ingredients take their inspiration from Canadian style pancakes: bacon, maple syrup, raspberries and pancake mix. The structure is simple: for each serving, use one large pancake and then put a smaller side dish-sized pancake on top. Then place a raspberry in the centre for the nose, two raspberries for eyes and position the bacon at the top like antlers. Lather with dollops of maple syrup and voilà – Rudolph gets eaten for breakfast, without needing to touch any venison!
Snowballs
Another cool idea to surprise the family is creating homemade white chocolate snowballs. Simply get a pack of marshmallows and coat them in liquid white chocolate and then roll in desiccated coconut. These ones are safe to play with indoors, and won't leave a trail of wet wellies in the hallway. For more Christmas ideas that are truly unique and delightful, check out the Vintage Christmas Ideas page on Pinterest.
The ultimate surprise
Probably the most deliciously unexpected surprise that can be given on Christmas morning is a food and wine hamper. Try ones that include cheeses, wine and chocolates for dad. Get a luxurious breakfast hamper for mum, who should be allowed a lie in now and then (probably not on Christmas morning, let's be realistic). Kids will probably like a selection of sweets and cakes in the hamper. Although ration them carefully or else they won't eat dinner. Take a look at Forman and Field hampers for an example of the ultimate surprise packages.
Party starters, movers and shakers
One way to kick off a post-dinner party once the kids have nodded off to sleep on Christmas night – is to introduce more adult food and drink into the equation. Try blinis with smoked salmon and vodka infused crème fraîche, and trifle infused with brandy and Frangelico. Perhaps a trend is building here. The complementary plonk should be light and bubbly. Try champagne cocktails with lychees and chilli Bloody Marys. After a day of shrieking and yahooing from the children, this kind of supper will be music to the ears. Christmas food hampers offer a great selection of sumptuous foods that make a wind-down supper go smoothly, like mulled wine at midnight.
Christmas Bakewell Tarts
I wanted to try a different version of an old favourite combining different elements of several cakes that are sumptuous and decadent: the frangipance of bakewell tarts, the richness of the currant mix in mince pies and the melted marzipan inside a Simnel cake. With those in mind, I've created my own Christmas Bakewell Tarts.
Ingredients:
- Shortcrust pastry:
- 125g/4oz plain flour
- pinch of salt
- 55g/2oz butter, cubed
- 30-45ml/2-3 tbsp cold water
- 2oz ground almonds
- 1oz caster sugar
- Frangipane filling:
- 125g butter
- 125g caster sugar
- 2 eggs
- 125g ground almonds
- 1 tsp of Nielsen Massey almond extract
- 1tbsp plain flour
- currants, raisins and cherries roughly chopped in a food processor for thirty seconds (I'm using this instead of mincemeat as The Boy doesn't like that)
- marzipan
- Make the shortcrust pastry in the traditional way (rub butter, flour, salt, sugar and almonds together, then add a few drops of water at a time until it binds together).
- Cut out circles and place them into a small muffin tin. Trim off the excess pastry and put a layer of baking beads over the base and cook for 8 minutes at 180°C.
- While this is blind-baking in the oven, make the frangipane mix.
- Cream the sugar and butter, add the eggs, mix in the flour and ground almonds, with a teaspoon of almond essence. Mix thoroughly.
- Once the tart cases have cooked, remove the baking beads carefully (they're hot!) and place a small circle of marzipan in each one.
- Place a teaspoon of currant mix on top, and then put a spoonful of frangipane mix on the top of each tart case.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes at 180°C until a skewer/knife comes out clean.
- Sift icing sugar over the top.
For a change I thought I'd video this cooking session. Mainly because cooking with a three year old is fun and I wanted to share that.
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Linking up to Recipe of The Week
Christmas Cornflake Cakes
Cornflake cakes are a far better no-cook cake than crispie cakes, the crunch is much better and they don't fall apart so easily! We decided to make some the other day but jazzed them up a little bit especially for Christmas.
You'll need:
- cornflakes
- chocolate
- golden syrup
- raisins
- Melt the chocolate in a bain marie (or bowl over hot water).
- Remove from the heat and pour into a large bowl coating the cornflakes and not leaving any residual chocolate in the base. If there's too much chocolate, add some more cornflakes.
- Squeeze in some golden syrup, this helps to bind the cake together and give a smoother texture. Stir in the raisins.
- Scoop into cupcake cases and leave to set.
- Once set, we sprayed ours with edible gold spray paint and sprinkled on multi-coloured candy buttons to resemble bauble.
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'Counting Down To Christmas' is a craft bloggers link-up held each week in the eight weeks preceeding the big day itself. Each week we will be posting a different Christmas craft activity.
This week the co-hosts are Rainy Day Mum ~ Making Boys Men ~ Here Come the Girls ~ TheBoyandMe
If you have any Christmas Recipes for or that you have made with kids please link below
Advent Activity Calendar
When I finish work every Friday lunchtime I have great intentions about the craft and play activities I can do with The Boy for the forthcoming four days until I return to work, yet by Wednesday I have failed miserably!
However, tomorrow the festive season starts and I am buggered damned if I am missing out on the opportunity to do great activities with The Boy each day, even more so since I saw this post on Domestic Goddesque the other day. So in pure 'borrowing' style, I have compiled a planner of Advent Activities for us to complete each day which hopefully should see us embrace the seasonal cheer.
What Christmas activities do you have planned?
