Handmade Hot Chocolate Mix - A Perfect Christmas Gift Idea

Homemade Hot Chocolate Mix - A Perfect Christmas Gift Idea

Handmade gifts are all the rage this year with the revival of all things crafty, and here is an awesomely simple and brilliant one for you. Every year, supermarkets and gift shops are filled with cheap mugs containing sachets of hot chocolate and a handful of marshmallows, crying out to be purchased for teachers, colleagues and acquaintances. With this recipe you can step it up several gears by creating the yummiest hot chocolate you have ever tasted, and presenting it in a cute personalised format for the lucky recipient. Plus - you can make sure that have enough left over for the mandatory quality control - an extra gift for you!

Finely Ground Dark Chocolate - 85% Cocoa Solids

The cocoa powder and 75% cocoa chocolate add a deep flavour to the hot chocolate, whilst the white chocolate adds a creaminess and hint of vanilla, complimented by the maltiness of the Horlicks. The cornflour prevents the mixture from clumping together.

Ingredients

4 tablespoons Horlicks

4 tablespoons cornflour

8 tablespoons icing sugar

8 tablespoons quality cocoa powder (I use Green and Blacks)

100 grams white chocolate, finely grated

200 grams dark chocolate (75% or higher cocoa solids) finely grated

5 grams salt

Method

Sift the Horlicks, cornflour, icing sugar, and cocoa powder into a large bowl. Add the salt and mix well. Grate the white and dark chocolate into the bowl. Mix well until all ingredients are evenly distributed.

To make, add 4 heaped spoonfuls of the mixture to 1 mug of hot milk and stir well. Add marshmallows, cream, sprinkles or liqueur as desired!

Transfer the mixture to individual jars, add a tag with instructions on how to make, and personalise accordingly. I bought these cute little spice jars from Tesco for £1 each, and they were perfect, the above quantities filled 4 jars exactly with no surplus.

Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Kate at What Kate Baked are looking for all things food gift-y this month for Tea Time Treats, so I am linking up with their challenge.

Gingerbread Recipe - Pantry Door Style

Quick post tonight - I wanted to share with you the recipe that I have been using for gingerbread this year, and a prime example of my 'kick-at-the-pantry-door' philosophy.

Earlier this year, after being bought a gingerbread house kit by my Grandma, I made a few batches of gingerbread, which proved to be quite successful (and reportedly quite spicy!). On Christmas Eve, whilst finishing my Christmas hampers for a few family members to open on Christmas Day, I decided to make one final batch to add to the boxes of goodies.

Happily humming Christmas tunes, I gathered my utensils, weighed out my ingredients, melted the butter, and reached for the golden syrup... only to find that rather than the required 300g, I had... 25g! It was 5pm on Christmas Eve, there was no way I was going to the supermarket, and I had a gingerbread-man shaped hole in my hampers. I tipped the cupboard out, feeling into the back of dark corners in the vain hope of finding a long-forgotten bottle, but to no avail, so I had to improvise.

I re-read my recipe, which calls for 300g golden syrup or treacle. I had black treacle. 100g of treacle in and I looked at the mixture forming with dismay, if I was to use 300g of black treacle, I had a feeling I was going to end up with tar biscuits. Then I spied a bottle of Orange Blossom honey in the cupboard. This is already ruined, I thought, what harm could it do?

In truth - both Gary and I agreed that they were the best batch yet! Just goes to show - don't be afraid of adding and substituting in recipes, they are after all just guidelines! I have posted the official recipe below... happy experimenting! xx

Gingerbread

180g Butter
125g Brown Sugar
300g Golden Syrup or Treacle
500g Plain Flour
1/4 tsp Salt
1 tbsp Ground Ginger
1/2 tsp Bicarb of Soda

Melt the butter over a low heat, then add the sugar, syrup and treacle. Remove from the heat and stir.

Combine the dry ingredients, then add to the syrup mixture, stirring until it forms a thick dough.

Transfer the dough onto a sheet of baking paper, and roll out to approx 1/2 cm thick. Cut out the shapes and remove the excess. Transfer the baking paper onto a baking sheet, and bake for 10 - 15 mins at 170 degrees. Remove from oven when shapes are firm to touch, they will continue to cook and firm up when out of the oven, so do not leave in for too long as they will be too hard and lose some of their chewiness.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

OK... It's Christmas Eve Eve (according to my Twitter feed) and I am at last sitting down to write a Christmas blog. You should probably know that I have four open drafts here, and a heart full of good intentions, however I realise now that I haven't actually uploaded a single word in December. This is not because of writer's block, it's not even because I have nothing to say, but more that so much has been happening that I simply did not know where to start!

Over the next few days I intend to share some baking experiments, a few tried and tested recipes, and the end results of a few long planned projects for some very special friends. Today however, before Christmas has been and gone completely, I wanted to share a few Christmas staples, and hope that a few of you may still yet benefit from the tips and links!

A few weeks ago, my Grandma took me Lakeland to buy Christmas presents (I was like a child in a sweet shop, seriously) and one of the treasures I brought home in my loot was a cookie cutter set for a gingerbread house. This little gem was just £4.99, and I have used the cutters over and over this Christmas, from shapes for icing cakes, to making a more festive shaped batch of cheese scones! This is the link, and comes thoroughly recommended by yours truly ... http://www.lakeland.co.uk/16675/Gingerbread-House-Cutter-Set

The box the set came in has a recipe on the back for gingerbread, and having never made it before, I used this and followed it to the letter to make my first batch of gingerbread. I made a batch of Christmas shapes, which have formed part of my Christmas hampers for friends and family, and decorated them with coloured royal icing. A lot of the blogs I have read over the last few weeks have all made a similar complaint, trying to find a red food colouring that does not come out pink when mixed with buttercream or royal icing. I have to say that the best by far is Sugarflair. You can find this in any good cake decorating shop, and is in small pots of gel. A small amount of this on the end of a cocktail stick is enough to produce a strong colour, and because it is a gel it doesn't affect the consistency of the substance you are adding it to.

These were my finished gingerbread shapes...

Gingerbread

Next up were my Christmas essential, Mince Pies. I always have to have these in the house, nothing gets me more in the Christmas spirit than a hot cup of tea and a mince pie, and I honestly cannot face the task of wrapping presents without the promise of this at the end. Up until now, honestly I always use shop-bought mincemeat, however I have made a promise to myself to try and make it homemade next year. I do try and make my mince pies stand out from Mr Kipling's (other makes are available...) and I always add ground almonds to my shortcrust pastry to give a special mince pie taste. This year, I found some cute Christmas stencils as well, and used these to decorate the tops of my mince pies with icing sugar.

Mince Pies

The almond shortcrust pastry recipe is as follows... Sift 200g plain flour into a large bowl, add 40g golden caster sugar, and 75g ground almonds. Stir the dry ingredients through until fully combined. Add 125g butter and rub into the mixture to create a breadcrumb like texture. Beat one free range egg and slowly add to the mixture, stirring well to bring the crumbs together to form a dough. Knead briefly and form into a ball, wrap in clingfilm and place in the fridge for at least an hour. This dough will make approximately 12 pies. Be warned, it make a very crumbly dough from the almonds, do not over handle and use flour sparingly to roll out so as not to dry it our further.

My third and final share for the day is my first attempt at a Yule Log, or Buche de Noel to give it it's Sunday name! I have had a couple of requests for Yule Log this year, and spent a little time researching various recipes to give myself a starting point. I settled on the Mary Berry recipe from the BBC Food website - http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/yule_log_15656

My only deviation from the recipe was I decided to swap the listed whipped cream centre for a chocolate mousse, which I made from melted chocolate and whisked egg whites. This was the end result, and it went down very well with my testers it has to be said - I now have to make another for the family for Christmas Day!

Buche de Noel : Yule Log

More recipes and photos to follow over the next few days, in the meantime, Merry Christmas all, I hope Santa brings you everything you wish for...

V xx

The Quest For The Perfect Christmas Cake

There are many things that I am trying to turn my hand to this year, with Christmas Cake being high up on the list for a number of reasons. Firstly, I am hoping that (if and) when The Pantry Door starts to officially trade, I will be able to sell them. Secondly, because this year, I am hoping that they will be a key feature in my Christmas hampers for friends and family. And thirdly, but no less important, because you have to have Christmas cake, and it's about high time I learned to make one!

Because Christmas is steeped in tradition and recipes passed down from generation to generation, I decided against Google as my source of inspiration this time, and tried a more traditional approach... I asked my Mum. My Mum is a great baker, her cakes are legendary. So much so in fact that I remember at school whenever I took a slice of my Mum's cake in my packed lunch I would auction it off to the highest bidder! (Always safe in the knowledge that I could spend my 20p on whatever I chose, and still have a slice of delicious cake when I got home...)

So I phoned my Mum, expecting, to be honest, for her to pop over for a cup of tea, and then, with exaggerated secrecy present me with a faded brown page, passed down from the ages, containing the ultimate Christmas cake recipe. In reality, she brought me a ready measured Christmas Cake Kit from Tesco. True, it was endorsed by Mary Berry, but that's not really the point.

However I set about the task in earnest, and unpacked the bag of ingredients and the recipe card. I actually have to credit the brilliant simplicity of these kits. All the dry ingredients are measured, bagged and labelled in the kit, and all you need to add are butter, eggs, and citrus peel. The sheet gives you step by step instructions on making the cake mix, and the recipe and quantities are all written down so you can actually keep it for another year.

The Mary Berry endorsed Tesco Kit recipe is as follows;

210g dark brown sugar
210g butter
4 large eggs
1 orange
1 lemon
40g chopped almonds
10g black treacle
210g plain flour
3g mixed spice
833g soaked fruit mix (currants, raisins, sultanas, cherries, apricots, mixed peel and brandy)
10g apricot jam
200g marzipan
250g icing sugar

The method is surprisingly simple. Pre-heat the over to 140 degrees. Grease an 8 inch tin, and line the base and sides with baking parchment. Make a lid for the cake from parchment as well, and cut a small hole in the centre to let any steam from the cake escape during cooking.

Line Tins with Greaseproof Paper or Baking Parchment

Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until creamy. Add the eggs, almonds, treacle, and the zest of the orange and lemon, and mix well.  Sift in the flour and mixed spice, and fold into the mixture. Add the soaked fruit, and combine well until evenly distributed through the mix.

Christmas Cake Mixture

Place the mixture in the prepared tins

The instructions said to bake for four and a half hours, but to do the skewer test after three and a half. I actually used a series of small cake tins to make my cakes, as I have plans to decorate them individually as gifts, so I checked my bakes after an hour, and they were pretty much done. I gave them an extra 20 minutes, and then put on a cooling rack. 

Tradition dictates now, that the cakes are wrapped in greaseproof paper and tin foil, and are fed with more brandy every couple of weeks until they are decorated for Christmas. I have made two batches, and the first are now coated in marzipan waiting for the final touches with the icing. I cannot wait to see my designs come to life!

All in all, I have to say that the Christmas Cake Kit was not such a bad idea, and actually I picked up another couple at the supermarket last week for £5 each, which, lets be honest, you would never manage to buy the individual ingredients for, and actually, you are still doing all of the cooking so it isn't really cheating... is it? I suppose, as always, the proof will be in the eating - I'll let you all know how it goes on Christmas Day!

V x

The Pantry Door's 'Saturday Experiment' Feature

It's becoming something of a feature in my life to have a Saturday Experiment each week - something that I have never made before that I have decided to try and master. I bought The Great British Bake Off book today - 'How to Turn Everyday Cakes into Showstoppers'. Having scanned through cover to cover already today, I can assure you that there will be many more Saturday Experiments to come! On a serious aside, I would recommend any aspiring baker to pick up a copy of this tome as soon as possible, as it is packed not only with great bake ideas, but brilliant tips for the basics, from buttercream to making praline, and how to cover and stack cakes. I have added the link to Amazon here, but I bought my copy from the local supermarket.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Great-British-Bake-Off/dp/1849904634/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353175309&sr=8-1

Let's bring us back to today's Saturday Experiment however - today, I decided to try and master fudge. I decided this late last night as I was mentally drawing up a list of possible components for this year's Christmas Hampers, and was trying to focus on homemade/baked items that would be a little longer lasting over the Christmas period.

I should take a moment now to admit that I made batch one last night, using a recipe from a book I had at home. Still now I am unsure as to how and where I went wrong with this batch (the recipe incidentally was for a Black Forest Chocolate variety) however when I woke this morning and raced downstairs to unveil my creation, it had failed to set beyond a sort of gooey, crystallised, chocolatey mess.

I decided to cut back to basics, fudge apparently wasn't quite as easy as I expected, and went back to trusty Google to find a new recipe. The one I settled on in the end was on the Carnation website (as in the evaporated milk people). I note however that there are many many variations of recipes out there just for basic fudge before you even get into different flavours. Some call for milk, some double cream, some evaporated milk. And then again, some caster sugar, some demerara, and some golden. I think that fudge may take a series of experiments to find the best basic recipe, before I start trying to get creative with it.

Anyhow - here is the link to the recipe, and my step by step efforts...

http://www.carnation.co.uk/recipes/67/Ultimate-Fudge

So, the basic instructions are pretty simple, but I wanted to share what I learned in between each step... (the tricky bits they don't tell you!)

Start by weighing all the ingredients and putting them all into a heavy non-stick pan together. I would add, use as large a pan as possible, as the mixture expands quite a lot when on full boil, and cut the butter into small cubes first, rather than putting it in one block, as it will melt and combine with the other ingredients quicker.

Step One: Put all the ingredients in the pan

Gently heat the mixture, stirring constantly, until it reaches the consistency below.

Step Two: Gently heat until the sugar has dissolved

Now we bring the mixture to the boil. The Carnation recipe gives a method for testing the temperature of the fudge using a glass of cold water, but I would strongly recommend getting hold of a sugar thermometer if you can. Things I learned during this stage... 1) boiling fudge is very hot - whilst you need to stir this constantly, please keep your hands and fingers out of harms way as best as possible. 2) you need to keep stirring, and most importantly, scraping the bottom of the pan. I didn't quite do this enough, and ended up with a few little bits of burnt mixture in my fudge, which you cannot taste, but they do spoil the look. And 3) make sure you get to the 118 degrees specified, any less and you will not get the right consistency at the end.

Step Three: Boil to 118 degrees Celsius

Once you have reached the magic number, remove from the heat, and beat the mixture until it thickens. Try and do this away from the stove, and use either a whisk or a spatula. The mixture will start to cool, and thicken - keep scraping it away from the sides of the pan, otherwise you will loose half of your fudge as it sets to the pan (plus it will be a nightmare to clean later). You want the mixture to be just a touch thicker than the picture below, before transferring to a lined tin, and spreading evenly.

The beauty I found with this particular recipe, is that it does not require cooling overnight, and after a couple of hours it was firm enough to slice and enjoy with our afternoon cup of tea (whilst also enjoying Arsenal run rings around Tottenham!). It is quite a crumbly fudge, and whilst delicious, I think I will still try a couple more variations until I find my favourite.

The End Result: Creamy, Crumbly, Buttery Fudge

Now I have started this mission to master Fudge, I am reminded of a favourite little shop I used to frequently visit in Bath when I was at university, located just off the Abbey Square. The shop does nothing but fudge, in all the flavours you could ever want or imagine, and makes them right there in the shop front in full view of salivating tourists and onlookers. I looked them up online when I logged on tonight to remind myself of their glorious creations, and noticed they have an online shop now, and also sell a Make Fudge At Home Kit... Santa, if you're reading, I have been a very good girl this year... Check them out of you love fudge - http://www.fudgekitchen.co.uk