FESTIVE BAKING Delicious Christmas

CHRISTMAS BAKING

This month we’ve created a dizzyingly delicious range of festive treats with our favourite baker Katie Jones. If you’re keen to provide the family with some delicious Christmas treats, you’ll find festive food for thought here!

Words: Katie Jones. Photos: Dean Fisher.

GINGERBREAD COOKIE CHRISTMAS TREE STACK Preparation time: 15 minutes. Cooking time: 10 minutes. 225g plain flour • 1/2 tsp salt • 1 heaped tsp ground ginger 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon • 50g butter • 100g brown sugar • 100g golden syrup

Melt the butter, sugar and syrup on a medium heat in a saucepan. Sieve all the dry ingredients into a bowl. Once the butter, sugar and syrup are melted add this to the dry mix and combine into a dough using your hands (food grade gloves are ideal for this). Pop the dough on your worktop and roll out with a rolling pin to roughly 5mm thickness. I have used a star cutter and done roughly three of each size to maker a taller tree. Lay out your stars onto lined tins and bake at 180°c for roughly 10 minutes, or until brown. Once cooled you can make buttercream to decorate. Whisk your preferred ratio of butter and sugar until white and fluffy. Use a concentrated food gel, like colour splash, green and cut a small hole in a piping bag and just pipe the colour on as your stack the stars together to make the Christmas tree. I have also added sugar decoration balls; decorate to your taste!

It’s a lovely, easy egg-free recipe to make and decorate with young children. My three year cannot get enough of these, and I cant wait for my youngest to be old

enough to join in with him! n

RED VELVET MARBLE CAKE

Preparation time: 15 minutes. Cooking time: 10 minutes. For the Vanilla Sponge: 115g salted butter • 115g caster sugar 140g self raising flour • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder • 2 eggs For the Red Cake Batter: 115g salted butter • 115g caster sugar 140g self raising flour • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder • 2 eggs • 20g cocoa powder a few squeezes of Colour Splash red food gel.

Grease and line your loaf tin. Use a tablespoon to add three scoops of the red velvet batter into the base of the loaf tin, leaving space for then adding three scoops of the vanilla cake batter next to the red velvet. Do the same for a second layer, alternating red velvet on top of the vanilla and vice versa. Once you have used all your cake batter get your cake tester and swirl the batter about to make it marble, without actually mixing it together to combine it; you want to marble it so you have two separate flavours marbled together.

Pop it in the oven at 170°c, and depending on your oven and tin it will need anything from 30 minutes onwards. Keep checking until a knife comes out clean. you could top it with anything from chocolate ganache to buttercream! n

BAILEY’S CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES

Preparation time: 15 minutes. Cooking time: 10 minutes.

250ml double cream • 300g 70% Belgian chocolate • 150ml Bailey’s 1/2 teaspoon salt • 1 knob butter

These have three layers so it’s your choice how many of them you do. Melt the double cream and butter on a medium heat in a saucepan. Put the chocolate, butter and salt in a bowl.

Once the cream is steaming but not boiling pour it over the chocolate and hand whisk until combined. This will be a thick ganache. Then add the Bailey’s gently until combined. pop in the fridge until set.

Once cold and set (it’s better to use food grade gloves as this is a very messy job!) use a teaspoon to scoop out your individual truffles and lay out on a plate or tray with greaseproof paper. Once all truffles are rolled out pop back in the fridge or even the freezer until you’re ready for the next stage. They last weeks and weeks so you can do this well in advance of Christmas if you’re planning to have them for entertaining or to give to loves ones gift as presents. For the rich Bailey’s buttercream layer, use the same recipe as the chocolate buttercream for the cake, but you will use more Bailey’s so that it's a much stronger buttercream. use a couple of teaspoons to drop the cold or frozen truffles into the Baileys buttercream bowl and roll and around until coated, then pop back on their plate or tray. Once all truffles are coated pop them back, ideally in the freezer, or in a really cold fridge. For the chocolate coating it’s a good idea to temper the chocolate, as this makes the chocolate glossy and stops it from blooming (going grey where the sugars in the chocolate crystalise). If you’re not too fussy it will be fine to just melt the chocolate and coat the truffles and put back in the fridge until set, but if you want some really well finished chocolate it’s worth the extra effort and time. You will need a food thermometer, which are really inexpensive and you can get them from supermarkets or any well known online next day delivery outlet. Ideally you need one steel mixing bowls, two regular breakfast bowl, the food thermometer, a spatula and a saucepan of boiling water. To create 500g 70% chocolate, measure out 333g into the steel bowl and put over the saucepan on the heat (a bain-marie) and put the other 166g (known as the seed in tempering) into one of the breakfast bowls. Melt the chocolate to exactly between 55°c and 58°c. At this point take 166g of the melted chocolate into the second breakfast bowl and put aside to stay warm. Add the seed into the melted chocolate in the steel bowl and mix in until melted to cool it down to between 27°c - 29°c. You may well need to just slightly put this bowl over the bain-marie as you’re melting the seed in because smaller quantities are harder to melt at this temperature. If the temperature exceeds 29°c to melt the seed just add a few extra Belgian chocolate chips until you cool it back down to 27°c-29°c. At this point add the second bowl with the melted chocolate to increase the temperature back up to between 53°c-55°c. If it's not quite there just pop it back over the bain-marie until you get it there. Do not try and multi-task when tempering chocolate because the right temperature will come and go in a blink, so you need to be vigilant with your

thermometer! n

There’s ‘snow’ spirit in the world like this

Festive-themed gin utilises tangy orange, sweet gingerbread, and even manages to dazzle with some gold-leaf luxury!

Snow Globe Gin is a new artisan gin with orange and gingerbread, delicious for the festive season! Presented in an exquisite Italian made Snow Globe Bottle, the product contains edible 23ct gold leaf and a lamp on the base for illumination. Give the globe a gentle shake and turn on the lamp switch to see the twinkling gold leaf cascade around the Christmas scene inside. It comes with a gift box too, making it an excellent festive present. £29 / 70cl / 20% ABV.

The Wine Cellar

Wine of the Month

Blue Aurora English Blueberry Ice Wine, Oundle, Northants 2020 £17.95 / 37.5cl / 10.5% ABV

Intense, fruity & velvety smooth, this is a gorgeous sweet tipple to enjoy by the fire when friends pop by to wish you a Merry Christmas! Blue Aurora is purely and simply made from 100% English blueberries, hand picked from Lutton Farm in Northamptonshire.

The blueberries are frozen, then pressed and fermented to create this beautiful sweet Ice Wine. Produced by Lutton farm; a family run farm just outside the picturesque town of Oundle, by the Long family. Call 01832 273300 for stockists or see blueaurorawine.co.uk

GET INTO THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT WITH... WELL, A CHRISTMAS SPIRIT, OR ONE OF THIS MONTH’S WINE RECOMMENDATIONS. BEST WISHES AND MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM ALL AT PRIDE!

THREE FOR ‘ROUND THE TREE: Wine to enjoy with friends around the Christmas Tree...

We’re Just Playing Devil’s ‘Advocaat’

1. Casual acquaintances? This single estate Sancerre will demonstrate a discerning palate. Very dry, with citrus notes and a green grass aroma. Exclusive to Waitrose. £14.99 / 75cl / 13.5% ABV.

2. Good friends? Well, then we’ll recommend Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Very full-bodied indeed with the spicy plums and leather you’d expect from a Rhône wine made with a Grenache blend. C’est Bon! £67 / 75cl / 14% ABV.

3. And for best friends... Louis Roederer Cristal is enjoyable to say the least with its apricot and hazelnut dryness, and sublime mousse. £200 / 75cl / 12% ABV. It’s still around. That festive tipple which contributed to snowball cocktails and so many green around the gills expressions on Boxing Day. Warninks is the world’s largest manufacturer and first produced the spirit in 1616. It’s Dutch in origin, its proper name is advocatenborrel and it is made from eggs, sugar and brandy. Mix it with lemonade and lime juice and consume with a tin of Quality Street. £12 / 70cl / 17.2cl

n Our featured wines are available from the best local independent wine merchants, supermarkets and online, prices are RRP and may vary from those stated.