DIY Xmas

The Christmas Cakes (from ALison Holst I think)


For 2 small (10cm) cakes
1 cup sultanas
1 cup currants
1/4 cup flour
50g softened butter
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 rounded household teaspoons of treacle
grated rind of 1/2 a lemon or orange
1 egg
2 Tbs flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground allspice or pimento
pinch ground cloves

1. several hours before you want to start making the cakes, wash the fruit in very hot water and drain well, leave until cool and dryish before using. When cool and dry, mix with first measure of flour

2. Cream butter, sugar, treacle and grated rind until light coloured, add remaining flour, spices and egg. Stir in floured fruit. spoon mix into two small tins (used, large tuna cans work well - I lined with baking paper and then put newspaper around the outside) and bake for 1 hour at 140C then at 130C for 30-60min or until a skewer in the centre comes out clean.

Mine took an extra 40 min

Then you can decorate them with either icing, glace cherries, nuts etc, wrap ribbon or fancy paper etc around them. I am going to then wrap them in cellophane.

I made our first two....and we have eaten them already   The first one (on the first day) tasted a bit strong in clove and I made a mental note to leave it out next time but we ate the second cake last night and the clove taste wasnt as strong.

Now what to do with all the tuna????


Apricot and coconut truffles
500g dried apricots
1 tin condensed milk
finely grated rind of an orange
1 cup coconut
1/2 cup brown sugar
extra coconut for rolling

Chop apricots finely (food processor) In a bowl, mix apricots, condensed milk, orange rind, coconut and brown sugar. Shape into balls and roll the balls in extra coconut. Keep in fridge.

So I probably just breached every copyright rule.

Thanks for all the great ideas ladies.

I went through my Foodtown mags (thanks to MIL) & found some yummy stuff there.

There was one for just plain biscuits & you cut them out with xmas cookie cutters & poke a hole in the top then bake, ice & then you poke a ribbon through it so you can hang on tree, I am going to do them without the ribbon as don't want to hang food unwrapped on tree (flys & kids, yuck)

Off to the warehouse to get cookie cutters this week, had a look on TM, some really cool ones there.

Oooh along the same lines of your idea Kel you can do the same using a mallowpuff biscuit - drizzle with white choc and a jaffa on top and spearmint leaves - so cute and easy!

caliandjack wrote: Something I've seen which I'd love to try, is giving someone a recipe this can be for kids, too. Type up the recipe on a card and include all the dry ingredients pre-measured flour, sugar, baking powder etc, and a baking tray/muffin tin, spatula and an apron and wrap it all up and give as a gift. You can do one for kids with cookie cutters etc such a great idea. I'm doing fudge and chocolate chippie biscuits this year, and if I get time lemon honey (which I might include with a recipe for tarts).

Oh I love that idea!!!! If I wasn't giving everyone photo books then I might just do it!

gee I forgot about this one, I am going to try the marshmallow one with the mallowpuff biscuit, saw a pic in a mag but thought it looks hard lol mmm

bump

ALMOST bumped exactly a year to the day that it was bumped last year haha...we get to the 7th/8th of November and we start needing all the christmas stuff ;-)