Christmas Baking, The Best Shortbread Recipe and a Library Project Update

Hello friends. I hope you've had a really enjoyable Christmas and are getting into the beginning of this new year with renewed motivation and vigour. That's what I prayed for (amongst other things), but how quickly motivation wanes. I had wanted to write this post last night, but once I'd downloaded the necessary photos from my phone, which I've been using to take all my food photos through the winter, onto my unimagineably slow laptop, it was too late to really commence writing a new post. I have a bit of a thing whereby, if I have a specific time-consuming task I've planned to do in the evening and haven't started by eight o'clock, something inside me refuses to allow me to start because it knows I'll be up until 11pm doing it; I can hardly handle such late hours any more. So this evening, at eight thirty, I am rebelling against my inbuilt alarm, and am commencing writing a blog post, because if I don't do it now, my subject matter will have become totally unseasonal and I'll have a lot of wasted material.

So, as you'll have seen from the title, this post has to do with Christmas baking. Over the last couple of weeks of December, I baked about 250 mince pies and the same amount of shortbread biscuits. 200 of each were for an event Rumney Forum held in our Old Library as a fundraiser, in our continuing quest to raise money to realise our dream of converting the building into a community cafe with hireable community rooms and loads of other brilliant ideas for reaching out to our local community. For more information on the Library Project, click here. The fundraiser in question was a Christmas tree festival. Just to set your minds at ease, there was nothing pagan about this event (!) but community groups, schools, local businesses and even families and individuals were invited to bring a Christmas tree to the Library, which we were really fortunate to have been granted use of by the council for the week of the event, and to decorate it, ideally with a theme related to their group. The trees would be set up in the Library like a forest, and the building open daily for a few hours so people could pop in and vote for their favourite tree. Father Christmas was to visit each day, sit in his grotto and hand out gifts to children and home made mince pies and shortbread were to be available every day. We got a steady stream of visitors during the week, when we were open Tuesday to Friday from 2-5pm, and the event culminated on Saturday afternoon with a community family party at which the winning tree was announced, and a raffle was held to win a hamper of goodies, as well as there being plenty of children's entertainment and other fun activities. The whole event was a resounding success. We had such a diverse cross-section of the community visit the festival both during the week and for the party. Everyone was so enthusiastic at the prospect of the library becoming an exciting and inviting space in which they can spend time, and were very supportive.

  
Following is a selection of the trees that were submitted. The whole forest feeling we were going for didn't quite work out, but we are hoping that next Christmas, God willing, we will have a lot more trees and a refurbished library in which to display them.

One of the local schools used the school bell as a topper...

Playgroup tree

Youth club tree

Another local playgroup's tree

An imaginative tree by the other local school 

...while the Police used a blue flashing light!

 Brownies tree - my personal favourite!

Please excuse the decor of the Library; it hasn't been decorated since, probably, sometime in the 80s, and it was definitely a challenge to make it look inviting!


So as you can imagine, I had to spend a serious amount of time in the kitchen over the weekend leading up to the festival, and during the week it was on, to ensure we had a constant fresh supply of baked goods. I was confident with the mince pies, because I've become a bit of pastry queen over the last couple of years. I don't say that in an arrogant manner, but I made it an ambition of mine to be able to make pastry well, so I've practised a lot, making plenty of pies, both sweet and savoury. I will tell you though, that I cheated with the mince and bought ready-made. I simply did not have time, what with everything else going on in life, to experiment with making that too. What I did need to expiriment with, however, was the shortbread. I was aware that making shortbread is a renouned skill, but I'd never tried it. My first attempt from the first recipe I tried (which was a River Cottage recipe, I can't believe it!) was a complete and utter disaster. I tried with the resulting dough three times to bake it, and each time it ended up a melted splat.

The dough was also far too buttery, not only inhibiting its ability to actually cook properly, but the buttery taste was too intense even for shortbread. I eventually found the recipe that would redeem my efforts in one of those cookbooks I picked up long ago in either a garden centre or in a motorway services. It's called Mum's Favourite Recipes and I have to say, it contains some really great recipes for hearty meals and traditional cakes, though it is not a healthy option cookbook! The shortbread recipe it contains is excellent. The dough rolled out perfectly without even having to be chilled, and it tasted absolutely delicious. I will share it with you below, though I unfortunately have no method photos due to time restrictions whilst making it.

Apologies for the awful orange tinge to these photos

Ingredients

250g butter at room temperature (the recipe states unsalted but I used salted)
125g caster sugar
250g plain flour
125g rice flour
Pinch of salt (though not needed if you use salted butter)

Equipment required

Stand mixer
Baking tray
Cookie cutter of your choice

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 150C for a conventional oven.
Prepare a baking tray with baking paper.

Ensure the butter is soft enough to be fairly easily beaten; I like to put chopped up butter in a dish then place it in the pre-heating oven while I prepare other ingredients. This way, it doesn't melt as quickly as microwaving it, but it becomes nicely soft around the edges. Just don't forget it's in there, as really the butter just needs to be easily beatable, not soft.

Beat the butter and sugar together in a stand mixer, using the beater tool (the one that's kind of diamond shaped with three large holes, if you have a KitchenAid) until pale and creamy.

Sift in both flours and the salt, if using, then beat until it forms a dough and clumps together. Remove from the mixer, then briefly squeeze the whole lump together with your hands, just to ensure it holds together nicely.

Now you can either wrap the dough in clingfilm and refrigerate it for half an hour (or even freeze it for use at a later date), or you can flour a worksurface ready to roll! Place the ball of dough on the floured surface, then cut a large piece of clingfilm, place on top of the ball, press the ball down firmly with the flat of your hand to create a flat top and bottom surface rather than the fully round ball, and, with the clingfilm in place, roll out the dough using a long rolling pin. The film will preven the pin sticking to the surface of the dough and will also give a beautifully smooth finish.

Keep rolling until the dough is about half to three quarters of a centimetre thick, then cut out your shortbread shapes using your desired cookie cutter, placing each one on the baking tray as you cut out. Place the full baking tray in the fridge for about 30 minutes to firm up the dough.

Sprinkle the cut cookies with caster sugar ten bake in the pre-heated oven for 30 minutes. The shortbread should not be golden, but should pretty much retain its original colour. The low oven temperature aids this, as well as allowing the shortbread to cook without melting.

We also held a little get-together at home during Christmas week, for which I once again produced about 50 of each of mince pies and shortbread. These shortbread photos are from then and you can clearly see how pale the cooked biscuits are. I highly recommend this recipe; I had so many complements about it. That's not to say that I made it excellently, but that it's a really good recipe; perfectly buttery and rich, with a lovely snap and excellent texture. I have altered the method slightly: the book doesn't specify using a stand mixer, but rather a food processor, which would also work perfectly well, so just use your processor if you don't possess a stand mixer. The cling film trick is actually from the failed recipe, but I upheld it because of the beautifully smooth surface it produces. This dough rolls out excellently no matter how many times you have to bring the scraps back into a ball, so go ahead and squeeze the scraps together as you definitely don't want to waste this dough. Oh, and a little health warning: the uncooked dough is as yummy as the cooked biscuits!!!

I also want to share the sweet shortcrust pastry recipe I perfected for the mince pies. Again arrived at through a bit of experimentation and mixing together of a couple of recipes, what I finally arrived at worked really well, so here it is. It's lovely and simple, and, like the shortbread dough, this pastry comes together nicely when you need to re-roll it. I believe this amount makes about 28ish mince pies.

Ingredients

400g plain flour
230g cold butter
4 tbsp caster sugar
8 tbsp water

Equipment

Food processor
Cupcake tins
Round cookie cutters (and stars if you want star-shaped lids)
Rolling pin

Method

Place the flour and chopped-up butter in a food processor and blitz until it resembles breadcrumbs.

Transfer the mixture into a large mixing bowl, add the sugar and stir in, then add the water, mix with a spoon, then bring the pastry together with your hands, squashing well to ensure the water is properly incorporated.

Wrap in clingfilm and chill for half an hour.

Pre-heat the oven to Fan 180C.

Flour a reasonably large area of worksurface, then roll the dough out to about 3mm. You will find the dough will roll out to this thin depth perfectly easily and that it will spread out nicely.

It gets much bigger than this, don't worry!

If you are making mince pies with your pastry, take the correctly sized cookie cutter to make the round bases, then cut out as many as you need, followed by the same number of lids. Butter the cupcake holes then place the bases into them, gently pushing them into place but not tightly. Fill with mincemeat then put the lids on.

 Bake in the pre-heated oven for 20 minutes.

You may find the mince spills out over the sides, especilly if you are generous with it. I found a slightly heaped teaspoon of mince to be the right amount for it not to bubble up and over too much.

Before cooking

After cooking

When I made these again for our Christmas gathering at home, I had defenitely perfected the amount of mince, and I used a round lid rather than a star. In my opinion, I prefer the round; it just looks tidier. But obviously stars are fun, especially for children, and only I would care how tidy a mince pie looked! Here are some photos of the latter batch.

And the mince pies and shortbread together...

All you need with these rich goodies are some refreshing drinks (oh, and mulled wine, which was still on the hob at this point).

How much better photos look when they're taken in natural light; I cannot wait for spring!

Finally, I can't finish this post without telling you about the absolutely delicious Christmas cake I made for Christmas day at my parents'. It was from the Christmas issue of Tesco Food, Family, Living magazine and it was incredible! It couldn't have been more unhealthy if it tried, but it was so worth it for a couple of days of (just slight) indulgence. I will definitely make this recipe again, in fact, it could become my traditional Christmas cake recipe. I'm not a fan of real traditional Christmas cake, so this was really satisfying. Here are a few photos, and a link to the recipe, Naked Gingerbread Wreath Cake.

Unfortunately I didn't take photos any of the sliced cake, but suffice it to say, it was pretty spectacular!

So, after that onslaught of baked goods, I'd love to know what you baked this Christmas. Did you discover a new favourite recipe to add to your repertoire for the festive season? I think I might have to make the mulled wine and mince pies gathering a tradition as well! Here's to some healthy recipes for the new year, and some exciting and experimental cooking and baking.

xxx Sam

A Lunchtime Feast

 Do you ever have one of those days; you know, the type where everything just goes perfectly and as it draws to a close you are surrounded by a feeling of pure joy and happiness that it has been so? Today has been one such day for me, thanks to spending some much needed time with lovely friends, the beautiful sunshine, and an unexpected walk culminating in a pub dinner with my dear in-laws. It has been a blessed day, as my MIL would say, and we all need a day like this once in a while, to be restored and reminded that there is peace in life, amongst the hustle and bustle.

The food preparations began early today. I had a hairdressers appointment at nine and our friends were coming over at midday. My meal plan was a light(ish) lunch, but "ish" enough to be a main meal (the pub dinner was not an expected event!) Sun-dried tomato braid; Winter Salad with Maple Candied Walnuts, a recipe I'd recently pinned and which looks simply stunning, from the equally stunning website, Half-Baked Harvest, and roasted, marinated chicken, followed by Chocolate Avocado Mousse from my old friend, River Cottage Light and Easy. Talking of Pinterest, I've been pinning quite a few recipes recently, and so as not to just end up with a folder full of deliciousness but no actual use of the recipes, which I imagine happens a lot with Pinterest, I'm challenging myself to make a recipe from one of my boards once a week. More on that in a later post.

So I got the sun dried tomato braid underway before rushing out at ten to nine to get to the hairdressers on time. Thankfully, Husb's parents had the boys last night, so, aside from the rush to get the bread prepared and in a bowl to prove in time, it was really rather enjoyable. This was a rather sticky dough, due to the addition of tablespoon of oil from the sun-dried tomato jar, and quite a lot of water, but it did knead nicely on a well floured surface, eventually.

I do have a Kitchenaid with a dough hook, which I used to use reasonably often to knead when I first got it. I find lately though, that I prefer to knead by hand. I love the motion of stretching out the dough and feeling the change from first mixed and slapped out, to a solid and stable mass which works with one's hands. The dough took a good two hours to double in size; plenty of time for a haircut and also to prepare the pudding.

This was the experimental piece of the day. I hadn't actually made any of the dishes I made today before, but the main course dishes were fairly uneventful in terms of unexpected ingredients, although not taste I might add! I thought though, how fantastic it would be to be able to make a dessert that tastes and resembles its unhealthy counterpart, yet in actual fact, has health benefits as well as tasting delicious. I must admit, even I was a little, teensy bit dubious about this one. I prepared this whilst Husb was mowing the lawn, so as to disguise the avocado as quickly as possible. He misses nothing though; more on this later...

Here is a tip. I know a few people have bought this book following my recommendations on the blog. If you make this recipe, make your life easier and chop up the avocado first. I think Hugh F-W has a special, super powerful blender which decimates anything in seconds. I do not, and my neglect to chop up these aptly named extra-large avocados, necessitated my trying to chop them a little whilst already in the food processor, which was a little awkward. It also took longer than expected for the whole mixture to break down into a texture with which I was happy. I tweaked the ingredients a little, using both honey and agave syrup in the mousse (the strawberries in the photo are for macerating in honey, to be served atop the mousse, not for the mousse mixture itself) and also added a drop of vanilla essence to slightly enhance the sweetness. Let me tell you now, if you taste this mixture as you go along, which I inevitably do, you may be underwhelmed. I can assure you that, once paired with the macerated strawberries, this dessert is lip-smackingly lovely. 

Avocado aftermath!

Back to the bread. Now nicely risen, and pictured here in front of the recipe book Low-fat baking, from which it is taken, I could briefly knead it, and form it into a braid ready for a final proving. This is a really excellent book, I must add; well deserving of the five stars it has been awarded on Amazon, albeit from one reviewer!

The dough split very nicely into three, and rolling it out was not too challenging either. Dough will usually stretch back into its original shape and it can take a little stretching to get it to remain in a long length.

I mixed the strawberries for pudding with the honey and lime juice, to give them time to macerate (a favourite word of H F-W) in the fridge. This is really worth doing, as it gives the strawberries a pleasant, sweet softness and the juice mingles with the honey and lime deliciously.

It was then time to concentrate on preparing the main course. As I said, I first came upon Half-Baked Harvest on Pinterest, but it's not hard to be drawn in by the stunning photography and utter inventiveness of the recipes, as well as the very humourous manner in which the blog is written; something I realy appreciate. I knew I wanted to make the Winter Salad (I know it's spring, okay?), but I wanted to make it a little more substantial, whilst not detracting from the salad as a main dish. I checked through the recipe and came to the dressing ingredients (balsamic vinegar, fig jam, olive oil and seasoning) and thought it would also do very well as a marinade for some chicken breasts, so decided upon this to go with the salad and bread.

Before baking the chicken though, I prepared and roasted the walnut halves. They are mixed together with maple syrup, ground cinnamon and seasoning, before being placed on a baking tray and roasted. Oh how delicious!

 Can you almost smell this photo?

Immediately after the nuts came out of the oven, I put the bread and chicken in. This would give time for the walnuts to cool completely before being mixed into the salad, and for the bread to cool a little, as it would be ready before the chicken. I didn't want to serve cooled chicken because it has a tendancy to lose its moisture if not served immediately.

I also had the opportunity with this dish to use an ingredient which was new to me; pomegranate. Obviously I've eaten pomegranate before, but not often, to be honest, and I've never had occasion to prepare one. It was certainly an interesting experience! And for your information, the seeds are called arils, apparently.

Pomegranates are certainly a beautiful fruit internally. It's easy to see why God desired their image to be used as decoration as part of Solomon's temple.

Now it all started to come together. The timings for the preparation of this meal needed to be quite precise, but all the facets were reasonably simple so it was not really challenging. Maybe that's because I just love organisation!

Bread fresh from oven

Salad prepared

Chicken baked and shredded

Usually, I serve people myself and carry the plates, fully loaded, to the dining table, but I decided to let our friends help themselves today, mostly for a change, but also because I've been so inspired by photos of food presentation since beginning this blog (yes I know, I have an awful lot to learn regarding photography!) and I felt like getting my serving dishes out of the depths of the cupboard to see how they looked with some food on them for a change! Now, it is only possible to make a table at which small people will also be sitting, look so nice. One has to bow to practicality, a plastic tablecloth and plastic placemats. So when trying to take a photo of the lovingly prepared food, it is a little difficult to create the type of scene which I have in my head. But, as I said when I began this blog, it's about the reality of cooking in a family kitchen, and that necessitates a little plastic protection for the sake of the dining table and my sanity!

Reality!

I have to say, this meal went down really well. The salad was a refreshing change with the candied walnuts, which even my friend who detests nuts enjoyed, and the pomegranate arils, as well as a sprinkling of goats' cheese. The bread turned out very nicely, and the chicken worked well, marinated in the dressing. All the components seemed to work nicely together and it was a pleasant amount of food for lunch on a beautiful, sunny day.

As I was making final preparations for the dessert, following lunch, Husb brought up the subject of the avocados, puzzled as to how they were to be included in the meal, as he'd seen the skins earlier on, on the chopping board, but they had not manifested themselves thus far in the meal. I tried to fob him off with, "Oh, they're for something later," but he wasn't buying it, knowing well my cunning. He asked if they were in the pudding and I couldn't convince him otherwise so succumbed to the pressure to confess. The idea didn't go down as badly as I'd anticipated however, and everyone was open to the idea of at least sampling the dessert. 

The fantastic thing about this pudding is that it looks like a heavy chocolate ganache, yet when one tastes it, it is much lighter and much less rich. Due to the heaviness of the avocado I would recommend erring on the side of slightly smaller portions; everyone struggled with a perfectly avarage portion size. The strawberry juice, lime juice and honey mixture was the absolute best combination to have with the mousse, and I wouldn't really suggest you make the mousse without it. It really enhances the chocolate whilst lightening the heaviness of the texture. We all concurred that it was a pleasant success. 

It was really enjoyable to be able to sit in the garden in the sunshine following our lunch, whilst all our children hit each other with tennis racquets played together nicely. Haha, there was only actually one instance of tennis racquet abuse, coming from the little Tonju, and they all had a fantastic time, disregarding that minor incident.

I hope you enjoyed a beautiful day in the sunshine and some tasty food. Thanks, as always, for reading.

xxx Sam