Christmas cut-out biscuits

Edible presents are the best - suitably frugal for the purposes of this blog, and the pocket.  These bikkies are lovely and spicy.  If you want to make them into hanging tree decorations, cut a hole for a ribbon with a piping bag nozzle from the soft cookies as soon as they come out of the oven.  Once cool, ice them with a not too runny icing made from icing sugar and boiling water, and decorate with edible glitter.  But personally I like them just as they are...

Ingredients

• 200g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp ground ginger (use a good one, like Barts Spices)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 75g unsalted butter
• 75g golden caster sugar
• 3 generous tablespoons golden syrup

Method

• Pre-heat the oven to 180C/350F.  Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.
  
• Put the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a saucepan over gentle heat and melt together.
• Whilst they melt, sieve the flour, baking powder, and spices into a mixing bowl.  Grind in the pepper.
• When the butter and sugar mix is runny add to the flour and beat in thoroughly.  You may need to add a little milk to make the dough sticky enough, but it is a crumbly mix.
• Gently kneed the dough together, it may keep falling apart in an annoying way, stay with it.
• Once all the biscuit dough is together, start to roll it out on a lightly floured surface.  Don't try and move it around, it won't stick to the surface.
• When you have it rolled to 1/2cm thickness (no less), dip the cutters in flour and cut your biscuits.  The dough will take a lot of squidging together and re-rolling, don't be timid.  Use a pallet knife to move the cookies to the tray so they don't collapse.
• Bake the biscuits for 6 minutes until golden round the edges.  Don't overcook, they will harden on the tray.  Leave to cool and snaffle..
• 

Joy to the world...

Oh I have that Christmas feeling for sure now. All the twinkling lights, my new 'Home for the Holidays' Yankee candle, the ice cold air... I am full of seasonal cheer - my little heart is jumping at the joy of it all. Yes, Christmas truly is my FAVORITE time of year!

And how better to celebrate the daily advance of 25/12 than by filling the kitchen full of the heady scent of cloves and orange, and baking up a storm of little star-topped cranberry mince pies? And please note the nod to Channukah, starting tomorrow night, in the choice of a star of David. Well these will be going to my in-laws on Monday after all...

This cranberry mincemeat recipe is from Nigella Christmas (London GB, 2008) p. 189. It is lighter and sprightlier than traditional apple and suet mincemeat. I thoroughly recommend it, as I suspect many mince pie haters could be won over by these...

Ingredients

• 60ml ruby port
• 75g soft dark brown sugar
• 300g cranberries, fresh or frozen
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 75g currents
• 75g raisins
• 30g dried cranberries
• Finely grated zest and juice of 1 clementine or satsuma
• 25ml brandy
• few drops almond extract
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 x 15ml tablespoons honey

Method

• In a large saucepan, dissolve the sugar in the ruby port over a gentle heat.
• Add the cranberries to the saucepan and give them a good stir, then add the spices, dried fruit, and zest and juice of the clem.
• Simmer the fruit for about 20 minutes over a moderate heat, until everything looks pulpy and most of the liquid has been absorbed. Squash any rebellious cranberries with the back of your wooden spoon (note - this doesn't work with red silicon spatulas, however festively appropriate they may be!).
• Take off the heat, and once it has cooled a little beat in the brandy, extracts and honey.
• The mincemeat can be stored in sterilised jars for a month, or be frozen for 3 months. I made mine on Monday and kept the saucepan in the fridge, removing it to make a batch a day until it was all used up.

The Pastry

• This is not the exact pastry Nigella Lawson recommends (on page 187 of the same book) but it is how I like to make it. You will need two batches of this to use up all the mincemeat, making 48 cupcake sized mince pies.
• Measure out 480g plain flour. Cut 240g unsalted butter into small cubes and stir through the flour. Freeze the whole lot for about 20 minutes.
• Remove the flour and butter from the freezer and pour into a food processor fitted with a double blade. Zest in 2 clementines and pulse the whole lot until it resembles dry sand.
• Squeeze the juice from the 2 clems and add to the flour. Pulse again.
• Add teaspoons of ice cold water down the funnel, pulsing cautiously, until damp course sand forms.
• Empty the whole lot onto a cold surface and kneed firmly to bring it together - don't over-knead!
• Divide the pastry into 2 disks, wrap them in cling and let them rest in the fridge for 30 minutes before rolling and cutting.
  

Orange and cranberry chocolate brownies

First off the bat, please let me apologise for my unscheduled absence of 2 weeks and counting.  I never meant to let my posts lapse to this extent, but starting some part-time voluntary work has rather knocked me for six over the last couple of weeks, and my cooking has likewise suffered*.  I had a baked potato and cheese for supper tonight...

However, I fully intend with the enthusiasm of fresh resolve never to leave so long between culinary experiments again.  And here is my (re)starting offer - a chocolate brownie to 

begin the gentle count-down to Christmas.

Now, yes I know that Christmas is still 50 days away.  And more importantly as far as

 this blog is concerned, chocolate brownies are not cheap to produce!  However, in answer to the first criticism I would argue that good things should never be constrained by dates on the calender - such as the sublime combination of orange, almond, cranberry, nuts and chocolate.  And to the second I would say that although, yes, the initial financial outlay for the ingredients is not cheap, these brownies are so rich, and keep so well, that you should be able to make several gifts for deserving friends out of them, thus keeping to the frugal ideal of my blog.

*Gosh, quite a cricket-metaphor heavy opening paragraph - Dr K will approve!

Ingredients

• 200g light muscovado sugar
• 100g golden caster sugar
• 250g unsalted butter
• 200g very dark chocolate, broken into squares
• 3 large eggs + 1 extra yoke, lightly beaten
• 60g ground almonds
• 40g very good cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• Zest of 1 orange (unwaxed or well scrubbed)
• 50g dried cranberries
• 50g hazelnuts, brazil nuts, or macadamia nuts (or a mixture), roughly chopped

Method

• Line the base of a square brownie tin.
• Pre-heat the oven to 180C/350F.
• Beat the butter and sugars together very well until really soft and fluffy.
• Meanwhile, melt the chocolate in a bowl suspended over (but not touching) some lightly simmering water.  Make sure no steam mixes with the chocolate (which could cause it to seize) by covering the bowl with a saucepan lid.
• Once the butter and sugar is well creamed, gradually beat in the egg in increments.
• Fold in the melted chocolate with a large metal spoon, and then the ground almonds, cocoa, and baking powder, with a pinch of salt.
• Lastly fold through the dried cranberries and chopped nuts and pour the brownie mixture into the tin.
• Smooth the surface, and bake the brownies for 40 minutes, though start testing after 30 if you have a very hot oven.  When they are ready the brownies should have lost their wobble, but a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake should still come out a little sticky.
• Cool in the tin.  Once cool cut into 20 little squares.

(Please note, this recipe is adapted from Nigel Slater's 'My very good chocolate brownie recipe' in 'The Kitchen Diaries', published by Fourth Estate in London in 2005, p.325-6.  All recognition for the original recipe should go to the author.)