Christmas and holiday season is incomplete without baking scrumptious biscuits, cup cakes, puddings, pies and plum cakes and making chocolates and candies. Here’s the time of the year to stuff yourself up with delicious food and wines. You see, tis not that Christmas is coming and only the geese get fat! Here we bring to you 10 delicious and sweet baking recipes for Christmas. A special article on wines will be up soon!
1. Cupcake Christmas tree
SourceWhat you need?
For the cupcakes
200g butter
200g golden caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
200g self-raising flour
2 tbsp milk
For the icing
300g butter
525g icing sugar
3 tsp vanilla extract
green food colouring
sweets, to decorate (Haribo Droppys and Waitrose jelly diamonds are used in the picture above but you could use Gems too)
large white chocolate star, to decorate
edible gold spray
Additionally you will need
24-hole mini muffin tin
48 green mini-muffin or petit four cases
small plant pot or mini bucket (roughly 13cm across the top)
12cm foam cone (measured across base)
cocktail sticks
green paint
How to?
Line the muffin tin with the muffin cases and heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Beat half of the butter, sugar and vanilla in a bowl until the mixture turns pale and fluffy. Add an egg and mix well. Now, add half the flour and milk. Use a spatula to mix them. Spread the cake mixture evenly in the cases and bake for 12 mins or until they turn golden and rise. Now do the same process with the other set of muffin trays. Let the cakes cool. For icing, beat butter and icing sugar in a bowl. Add vanilla and food colouring and mix well. Put the icing into a piping bag fitted with a small star nozzle. Pipe blobs of the icing on each cup cake. Now you should ready the tree. Take a thick foam stick, paint it green and with cocktail pins start pinning the cakes until the tree is totally decked up. Now stick this stick into a nice pot and serve the rest of the cakes (the ones left) by keeping them next to the tree. You are done! :D
2. Christmas brownie lollipops
SourceWhat you need?
300g nut-free brownies
50g chocolate, chopped
100ml single cream
edible sprinkles
How to?
Cut brownies into 24 pieces. Use your hands to roll each piece into a little ball about the size of a lemon. Insert a lolly stick, or coffee stirrer into each ball. Put chocolate in a large bowl, bring cream to boil and pour it onto the chocolate. Let it melt and then mix the two. Dip brownie lollipops and cover them up completely in chocolate. Drop sprinklers on it and let them set for 30 minutes. Keep your Christmas Brownie Lollipops in a cool place when not serving!
3. Star anise biscuits
SourceWhat you need?
50g butter
2 tbsp light demerara sugar
1 tbsp each golden syrup and treacle
½ tsp ground star anise
140g plain flour, plus a little extra
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
a little oil, for greasing
Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Put all ingredients except the flour & bicarbonate soda in a pan and heat until they melt. Strain flour & bicarbonate soda into a bowl, put the other mixture made with all other ingredients, & stir to make a soft dough. Put together with your hands into a rectangular disc, wrap in cling film & chill for 30 mins. Roll out dough out dough on a board. Lightly oil a baking sheet, stamp out 24 x 6cm circles with a food cutter & place on the sheet. Bake for 10-15 mins. Leave on the tray to cool. Star anise biscuits are ready!
4. Lemon star biscuits
SourceWhat you need?
325g plain flour
200g chilled salted butter
125g/4½oz golden caster sugar
2 tsp good-quality vanilla extract
2 large free range egg yolks
1 grated lemon
1 tbsp lightly beaten egg white
1 tbsp lemon juice
200g icing sugar
100g tropical dried fruits, such as mangoes, pineapple and papaya, chopped
50g dried cranberries, chopped
small handful silver ball
ribbon, for hanging on the tree
How to?
Mix flour and pieces of butter together. Add sugar, vanilla, grated lemon, and egg yolks and prepare the dough. Preheat the oven to 180C/ gas 4/fan 160C. Grease 2 large baking sheets. Roll out the dough to a thickness of about 5mm/¼ and cut out star biscuits using a 10cm cutter. Re-roll the trimmings to make more biscuits. Make one hole in each of the biscuits so that you could later hang them on the tree. Bake the biscuits for 18-20 minutes or until the edges get golden. Remake the holes if needed and now let the biscuits cool. Make an icing by beating an egg white, lemon juice and icing sugar. Spread the icing over the biscuits leaving the edges. Mix the fruits and scatter them on the icing with edible silver balls. Leave for 2 hours to set and thread with a ribbon when you like to hang them on the tree. :)
5. White chocolate Christmas fudge
SourceWhat you need?
1½ lb white chocolate, chopped
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ lb pistachio nuts, chopped
½ lb shortbread cookies, crumbled
¼ cup candied cherries
¼ cup dried apricots, chopped
¼ cup miniature marshmallows
How to?
You need a double boiler for this. Melt white chocolate until smooth. Slowly pour in condensed milk and salt, mix. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla, nuts, cookies, cherries & apricots. Spread evenly in a square pan with waxed paper. Put marshmallows on the top. Refrigerate for 2 hours or until it is firm to touch. Remove fudge from pan by lifting up edges of waxed paper; cut into small squares.
To give as Christmas presents, wrap individual squares in waxed paper and tie with a red ribbon!
6. Christmas tree crispy pops
SourceWhat you need?
200g marshmallows
3 tbsp golden syrup
100g Rice Krispies
6 ice-cream cones
500g icing sugar
½ tsp green food colouring
sweets and sprinkles, to decorate
How to?
Melt marshmallows and golden syrup in a pan, mix-in rice krispies. Quickly put the mixture into ice-cream cones and push a lolly stick into the middle of each. Chill the cones do they all turn firm. Mix icing sugar with green food colouring and little water to make a thick icing. Dip the cones into the icing & deck the cones with sweets and sprinkles. Let the sprinklers set.
7. Gingery Plum Cake
SourceWhat you need?
butter, for greasing
2 tbsp demerara sugar
500g plums
For the cake
175g butter
175g brown sugar
140g golden syrup
2 eggs, beaten
200ml milk
300g self-raising flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp mixed spice
How to?
Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease and line the base of a square cake tin with baking parchment. Butter the paper generously and sprinkle demerara sugar over it. Cut plums into half and arrange in the tin in 1 layer. Melt butter, brown sugar and syrup in a large pan over low heat, stir until the mixture becomes smooth. Cool for 10 mins, then mix in the eggs and milk. Strain flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices, and mix to a smooth batter. Pour the batter into the tin, over the plums, and bake for 45-55 mins. Once done, leave the cake to cool and store wrapped in parched paper in the fridge for 5 days.
8. Dark Chocolate-Orange Peppermint Bark
SourceWhat you need?
2 lb dark chocolate, chopped
1 lb white chocolate, chopped
½ teaspoon peppermint extract
½ teaspoon orange extract
20 peppermint candies, crushed
1 tablespoon finely grated orange peel
How to?
You need two double boilers! In one double boiler, melt dark chocolate and in the other one melt white chocolate over medium-low heat. Stir in peppermint and orange extracts as the dark chocolate melts (removed from heat). Pour dark chocolate onto baking sheet. Pour melted white chocolate on top in a zigzag pattern, use a toothpick to swirl together. Sprinkle peppermint candies and orange peel. Freeze until firm. Break bark into pieces. Voila!
9. Lemon cheesecake with baked plums & blackberries
SoureWhat you need?
200g shortbread biscuits
25g butter, melted
600g full-fat cream cheese
75g golden caster sugar
4 large eggs
zest 1 large lemon
3 tsp vanilla extract
100ml soured cream
For the baked fruit
8 plums, cut into wedges
300g blackberries
100g light muscovado sugar
How to?
Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 2. Line the base of a 22cm round, tin with baking parchment. Crush biscuits into fine crumbs in a bowl and add butter to it. Mix well. Press the biscuits on the base of the cake tin and keep in the fridge to chill. Whisk cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Add eggs, lemon zest and vanilla extract mix well (don’t whisk). Pour the mixture onto the chilled biscuit base and leave in the oven for 50 minutes. When cool, remove from the tin. Now, turn the oven up to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Bake plums, blackberries and sugar for 12 minutes or until use see the fruits have turned syrupy. Spread the earlier prepared sour cream on the cake and top it with the roasted fruits. :)
10. Christmas pudding trifle (using your left over pudding)
SourceWhat you need?
3 oranges
1 tbsp demerara sugar
2 tbsp Grand Marnier (orange-flavored cognac liqueur, or you can take any brandy with orange flavour )
300g leftover Christmas pudding
500g pot custard
250g pot mascarpone (Italian cheese)
284ml pot double cream
To serve
handful flaked almonds, toasted
dark chocolate, grated
How to?
Slice oranges as thinly as possible and set them over a plate. Sprinkle brown sugar and brandy and keep the plate aside. Crumble the pudding in large pieces over a bowl, pour oranges and its juice onto it. Beat Italian cheese and then mix custard. Spread the mixture with spoon over the oranges. Sprinkle flaked almonds and grated chocolate. You could prepare it a day in advance and it chill in the fridge.
So what are you making this Christmas? Let me know in the comments section below!
