Stollen breakfast rolls

Merry Christmas everyone! I hop everyone's day was what they wished it would be. Are you still hungry? I suspect not. If you are like me though you will probably have a lots of leftover bits and open bags in your baking cupboard, yes? Well if so these stollen style breakfast buns could help use up the dried fruit and marzipan kicking about.

These are delicious warm from the oven and as the dough is light they are a not too heavy start to your day, plenty of room for that party buffet later!

I used the cinnamon roll recipe on my blog, here. I changed the filling by using mixed spice instead cinnnamon, plenty of mixed dried fruit and 60g of marzipan  broken into small pieces.

These really are best baked fresh so I kept the rolls in the fridge baking them over a couple of days as and when I needed them.

Maple pecan fudge

Christmas is fast approaching and over the past few years I have started to make little homemade presents, either a few together as a gift or alongside something else.

I have already made rhubarb and ginger jam which I made last year. This year I have already made a variation too, clementine and lemon marmalade. I have also remade peanut brittle, recipe here.

I still have to make salted caramels dipped in chocolate, pink champagne marshmallows, spiced coconut  caramels, frostbite cookies and pesto. Phew, look out for those appearing on the blog in the next week or so!

One new recipe for this year, already made, is maple and pecan fudge. I had never made fudge before so was a little worried about how it would turn out. The recipe I followed was fantastic and the resulting fudge is creamy and  really deeply flavoured with maple syrup.

Maple pecan fudge (from bbc good food magazine)

150g golden caster sugar
300g maple syrup (I used the darker grade for a more intense flavour)
30g of golden syrup
150ml double cream
75ml whole milk
1 tsp vanilla paste
1/2 tsp sea salt
25g butter
100g pecans, roughly chopped

Grease the sides and base of a 8 inch square pan with some sort of vegetable oil and line with baking parchment. 

Combine all the ingredients except the butter and pecans in a large heavy based saucepan and cook gently over a medium heat, stirring frequently,  to dissolve the sugar.

Pop a sugar thermometer into the pan and bring the syrup to the boil. Continue to cook the syrup at a gentle boil until it reaches 114C/236F. The mix will have to be stirred frequently to prevent it catching on the base of the pan. This will take a while to get t the correct temperature, be patient. 

Take the pan from the heat and plunge the base into cold water to prevent the syrup from cooking further. Add the butter, give the fudge a gentle stir then scoop into a large mixing bowl. Leave to cool at room temperature for 20 minutes. Do not touch it! Not even a tiny taste, you will end up with grainy fudge. 

Using a wooden spoon beat the fudge for 3-4 minutes until it thickens and starts to lose its sheen. Add 3/4 of the pecans and then spoon the fudge into the prepared tin, spreading with a palette knife to create an even layer. Scatter the remaining pecans over the fudge pressing them in gently.

Leave to set overnight before using a nice sharp knife to cut into squares.

The recipe states these will keep for two weeks. I have wrapped each square tightly in clingfilm then put them in a thick cellophane bag. Hopefully the recipients will enjoy, I certainly enjoyed my quality control piece!

Xmas village

First things first. I can spell. As a general rule I very much dislike the word xmas instead of Christmas. Having said that, this months letter for alpha bakes is 'X'. I cannot find a food that begins with X so am actually pretty relieved it has turned up in December.

I was having my weekly wander round lakeland when I spotted, amongst much Christmas bakeware, their mould for a fairytale village. I have always wanted to make a gingerbread house and thought that for my first one small would be better as they would be sturdy. The mould can be used for chocolate or gingerbread.

I followed the recipe on the packet as I thought that it may be important for the structural integrity of the houses. I did add an extra half teaspoon of ginger and 1/2 a teaspoon of mixed spice as I really like my gingerbread to have a deep warmth. I also used all treacle. You could use all golden syrup or or a mix but 1) I like the flavour of treacle and 2) It makes my houses nice and dark which contrast nicely with the snow.

I have never made royal icing before but it was very easy and holds my house together very very well indeed.

I got creative with all the remaining royal icing to create snow drifts by doors and in window panes. I also had a go at icicles and am very pleased for my first attempt. I finished the whole thing off with a dusting of icing sugar.

Its almost to pretty to eat but once I had brown the first roof panel off it got easier. The gingerbread is crunchy with a lovely deep flavour, I am glad I added the extra spicing.

Frangipane topped mince pies

I am in love. With the homemade mince pie. Last year I mentioned how I thought I did not like mince pies. Turns out what I do not like are over sweet mushy soft soggy shop mince pies. What I LOVE are homemade ones with short crumbly buttery pastry with a spiced fruit centre.

I have already made a batch of normal mince pies this year and they reignited my relatively new found love. You can find the recipes for the mincemeat, and the pies themselves here.

Although I love them as they are I wondered if there was any other ways that I could jazz them up. I love frangipane and decided that a moist almond sponge topping on a mince pie would probably be no bad thing. And I was 100% right. These are amazing. As someone had work said, 'they may upset absolute traditionalists but dare I say these are better than all pastry'.

I am not claiming this to be an original idea, I am sure if we looked there would be lots of recipes out there. But I did use my own mincemeat recipe, my own pastry and my own frangipane recipe. So I can at least the claim credit for this exact version.

Frangipane topped mince pies

makes 10-12

90g butter
110g plain flour
2 tablespoons caster sugar
egg yolk
1-3 tablespoons ice cold water

mincemeat

70g butter
50g caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla paste
1 egg
teaspoon almond extract
70g ground almonds
25g plain flour
Pulse the butter and flour in a food processor until it looks like breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and egg yolk and pulse again. Add the water, a tablespoon at a time, and pulse until until the dough comes together, I have made this pastry a couple of times and always have needed 2 tablespoons of water, but it will depend on the butter you use and the size of the egg yolk.

Gather the dough and wrap in clingfilm, chill for 30 minutes.

While the pastry is chilling make the frangipane. Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla together until light and creamy. Beat in the egg and almond extract until combined. Gently fold in the almonds and flour until everything is evenly combined. 
Preheat the oven to 200C/180C FAN. Spray or butter cupcake tins and add a strip of greaseproof paper, this will make removing your mince pies a doddle.

Lightly flour a work surface and roll out your pastry to a few mm thick. Stamp out circles bigger than the bases in your cupcake tin.  Line the cases with the pastry, gently pushing it to the base and up the sides. Trimmings can be lightly re-rolled and to get the most from your pastry.

Fill each case with heaped teaspoons of mincemeat. then top with heaped teaspoons of frangipane. 

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until the frangipane topping is golden.

Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

I say cool completely but they are nice warm. I do  mean warm not hot, The hot pies are unstable and likely to collapse, not to mention the molten fruit within may do serious damage!

I am a little bit sad that I took these in to work as they are all gone already. Another batch will definitely be made on Friday.

Salted caramel and dark chocolate macaroons

One day, perusing twitter I saw a tweet proclaiming that 'today is the last day to sign up to the Great Food Bloggers Cookie Swap'. I was hooked at the word cookies and quickly signed up before the deadline could pass me by.

The basic premise of the swap is that you register your interest, get sent three names and addresses of other bloggers and send them cookies. In return 3 different bloggers send cookies to you. You pay a small fee to enter ($4, £2.50) and this money goes to charity, the money raised is also matched by companies so lots of money is raised. So lots money for charity and lots of cookies for me, everyone is a winner.

The cookies had to be robust enough to stand up to transport and also keep well. I initially considered biscotti, one of the toughest of biscuits. You're not allowed to send a recipe already featured on your blog but are able to send a variation. I have a few biscotti recipes already, and although I could have tweaked one I had another think.

After trawling the internet I found some European biscuits that for some reason made me think of English coconut macaroons. And that was that. English macaroons fit the bill perfectly, the keep very well and are robust enough to send.

The basic English macaroon is coconut, flour and condensed milk, shaped into mounds and baked until golden.

I decided I would jazz up my macaroons and make them a little less sweet and more sophisticated. I made salted caramel macaroons and dipped the base in dark chocolate.

Salted caramel and dark chocolate coconut macaroons

makes 40-45

225g caramel (from a tin or make your own)
sea salt to taste
one tin of condensed milk (390g)
500g coconut
120g plain flour
100g dark chocolate

Preheat the oven to 160C/140C FAN and line a baking sheet or sheets with baking parchment.

First gently warm the caramel and add sea salt to taste stir till dissolved. I salted a little more than I usually would, almost too salty. I wanted it to be able to stand up to the sweetness of the condensed milk and coconut.

Mix the condensed milk with the salted caramel. Add in the flour and the coconut and mix well until everything is thoroughly combined.

Using a tablespoon put heaped mounds onto the prepared baking sheets. Leave a few centimetres between each one, you will need to bake these in a few batches!

Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden. Leave to cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. They will firm up as they cool.

Once the macaroons are completely cold melt the dark chocolate and dip the base of each macaroon. Leave the macaroons upside down for the chocolate to set then devour!

Thankfully I had a few spare macaroons, so I could sample some, for quality control you understand! I really liked the texture of these, caramelised on the outside, soft in the middle, and the caramel chocolate combination helped temper the sweetness.  I hope that my recipients enjoyed them as much as we did here.

I would like to express my thanks to Merunnisa from Come.Con.Ella. for her delicious brownie roll out cookies. Pat from Pat's Kitchen for her seriously moreish Chocolate frostbite cookies. And finally Victoria from Victoria Sponge, Pease Pudding for her lovely festive Brandy soaked cranberry, Golden pecan and Dark chocolate Christmas cookies.