This is just a really quick post. I want to thank everyone who has read this blog since I started it in the summer. I'm looking forward to developing it in 2014. I hope everyone has a fantastic time tonight and that the New Year brings you everything you're hoping for. 

Cranberry and Orange Trifle

As I mentioned in my Christmas Day post, I made a cranberry and orange trifle for desert. It was delicious, despite the recipe being a bit of an experiment on my part, so I thought I'd share with you how I did it. Maybe it could be the centrepiece of your New Years Eve table - it's a very pretty trifle!

Orange Sponge
250g Butter
250g Caster sugar
4 large eggs
250g Self raising flour 
Zest of one Orange

1. Pop all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix together. The zest should be really finely grated and added last of all. If I was making this cake just to eat it, I'd also add about 150ml of orange juice to make it more moist, but for the bottom of a trifle you don't want it too wet. Cook at 180°C for 30 minutes until a knife comes out clean.

   

2. Cut the brown hard bits of the cake and chop down to size so it fits in the bottom of your bowl. Make sure there's no gaps, especially against the glass, where you want a lovely ring of the cream colour.
  

3. Soak in your choice of alcohol to give the trifle a bit of a kick. Ideally I would have used cointreau but that wasn't to be, so I mixed sherry, cranberry wine and orange juice and carefully covered the cake in it.

 4. Slice the orange and remove the rind. Place on top of the cake in an even layer.

5. Make a cranberry sauce by putting two handfuls of cranberries in a saucepan and covering them with orange juice and around three tablespoons of caster sugar. You can use more sugar if you want, it depends how sweet you want the sauce. Boil until thick and leave to cool before covering the oranges.

  
  
6. Cover with another layer of cake and a layer of custard. If you're feeling adventurous or have a lot of time you could make your own custard, but I went for good old ambrosia. 

7. Whip some cream and top the custard. Sprinkle the cream with anything you fancy - ideally with leftover cranberries, but a keen bean in this house had already nabbed the rest to make cranberry sauce for the turkey dinner.

  

Look how lovely the layers look! What did you have for pudding on Christmas Day?

Christmas Day

Did you all had a lovely, peaceful, Christmas day, filled with the people you love, food and general merry making? I had a wonderful day with my family, and thought I'd share a few snaps. Above are pictures of my final iced Christmas cake. I know I talked about the lovely snowflakes on sticks, but when I arrived home there was so much tempting greenery and I couldn't resist a real holly wreath. 

 

 
I have to admit I photographed the starter, a creamy fish mousse, but was too excited to tuck into the main to remember the photo. It was the traditional turkey dinner.

The pudding pictured is a cranberry and orange trifle, recipe to follow in a few days. We had it for Christmas day, but you could easily have it for New Year instead. It's mouth wateringly delicious - I may have to go and grab a leftover bowl now!

Did everyone else love this years John Lewis advert as much as I did? Receiving a cuddly version of the hare from Ben made me a very happy bunny indeed.

I really hope you all had as lovely a day as I did. Stay tuned later in the week for a few more festive posts.

Up-cycle an Advent Calender

I love advent calendars. When I was younger I had a lovely one that my parents filled themselves. This year they kept it simple and bought me a Hotel Chocolat one when they were up visiting. It was absolutely delicious, a treat everyday, but it did have a lot of packaging! Excess packaging upsets me - Easter eggs kill me. I love them, but there's so much plastic and cardboard and it's such a waste! As I ate the last couple of chocolates before I travelled home I had a brilliant idea that meant the plastic would be kept and reused for the foreseeable future. Who fancies Christmas shaped chocolates after lunch? I think this would be a great Christmas eve activity to keep little ones entertained until the big day. Here's how I did it:





1. Pull the plastic bits out of your advent calendar and pull all of the tin foil off
2. Melt your chosen chocolate and pour into the moulds
3. Leave to set in a cool place for a few hours
4. Pop out and enjoy!

Terry's Chocolate Orange Cheesecake

 

Whilst I'm sat on the train home for Christmas, I thought we'd talk about cheesecake. It has to be said, this particular cheesecake isn't much of a looker. But it is incredibly tasty. To me, the taste a bite of chocolate orange produces is like a mouthful of Christmas. I always used to get those segment sweets put in my advent calendar at home. So when my boyfriends Mum sent this recipe to me, I couldn't help but give it a go. And my goodness it is delicious. It's rich and creamy and terribly naughty. But it's Christmas, so I don't really care, and neither should you.

Terry's Chocolate Orange Cheesecake

Base
20 Biscuits (I used digestives, the original recipe said hobnobs, you can use whatever you fancy)
140g Unsalted butter (melted)

Filling
200g Full fat Philadelphia (no scrimping and using half fat, it won't set!)
100g Icing Sugar
184ml Double cream
160g of Terry's chocolate orange (plus extra to decorate. And eat.)

1. Smash your biscuits into fine crumbs.You want it to still have texture, but not have big clumps of biscuit in.

2. Add the melted butter and combine. Press down in the bottom of a loose bottom cake tin, then pop the tin into the fridge to cool while you make the filling.

3. Sieve the icing sugar into the cream cheese and combine. It doesn't look pretty, but it's super tasty if you decide to lick the spoon. I recommend licking the spoon.

4. Whisk the double cream until it's nice and thick.

5. Melt the chocolate orange and add to the whipped double cream.
6. Add in the cream cheese and icing sugar mixture to the double cream mixture then whisk until smooth. Dollop on to the base that you've cooled in the fridge and spread out evenly.
7. Decorate with the remaining chocolate orange and leave to set in the fridge for at least three hours. It's tempting I know, but the wait is worth it.