First time in 9 years I had Christmas off and I was able to visit my family in Berlin. Although it was a daily commute between different family members from Monday til Saturday, it was less stressful than expected.
My personal highlight was spending Christmas Eve at my sister’s with my niece (1) and nephew (8) who both still believe in Santa. It was so amazing for me to witness, I tried to figure out in my dreams how Santa does it all in one night! My nephew baked some cookies for Santa, put out his special mug for the milk and cut up some celery pieces for Rudolf and his friends. When he had been it looked quite a mess! My nephew was not impressed!
I went Christmas mad and had to travel with two suitcases and a backpack to get all the presents over. For the grown ups I made my own hampers with all things British that I could find and wrapped every piece up individually. I love wrapping. I bought some cheap bread baskets and had them shipped to my sisters for final assembly.
Then I had one last crazy baking weekend for all the cookies I have been trialling for the past two months on my colleagues and friends!
I had decided on three cookies variations:
Orange & Cardamom biscuits
Orange Ginger biscuits with candy windows
Rosemary Shortbread*
plus obviously as it was Christmas: Mince Pies, using Mary Berry’s mince meat recipe and Paul Hollywood’s pastry.
The night before I must’ve had a stroke because I decided to make three different types of short bread, so I added:
Lemon shortbread*
Lavender shortbread*
I also put it in my head to try millionaire shortbread for the first time! I am not sure why.
*For the shortbread I used the same basic recipe from Donal Skehan, just added lemon zest, lavender and rosemary. But I did not really have the time to do all three.
For the millionaire shortread I used this BBC Goodfood recipe. In hindsight, I would have preferred a more caramel-lish consistency and used double cream with loadsa sugar, but the reaction from my sister made her BF’s head turn, so I think it was a success 😉
For the window stained cookies I bought ‘real’ candy – Fox’s Crystal Clear Fruit Candies. My rolling pin had no power over them. The last time I had some cheap ones and they were crushed immediately! I nearly panicked, but I underestimated my tiny stick mixer and they were pulverised nicely!
It was a long sunday!
Due to space issues, I had to cram all of the different biscuits in as few cookie tins as possible and assemble them at my sisters. Praying they would not be turned into crumbles by the time I would survive London transport and the flight itself plus travel across Berlin to my sister’s.
Pre-cautiously I had all tins in my backpack and all cookies survived apart from a few Big Bens that lost their tips. Thankfully there was space in the kitchen for me to assemble the differently sized gift tins…
It is amazing what you can make with a bit of wrapping and a few nicely coloure gift bands… Some only got cookies, others only a hamper, some got both. The biscuits were quality controlled by my nephew who approved them all apart from the Mince Pies. Unfortunately I missed this experience! It took me years to like them.
Adventures in the Palace Kitchen 