Christmas Baking

Today is Christmas Adam, or Christmas Eve Eve if you're boring. Which for me is a very exciting day as you get all the excitement for christmas without the wrapping/cooking/last minute panic shopping (happens to the best of us) stress of Christmas Eve. And every year we have drinks/dinner/some kind of celebration with our various neighbours (one of whom came up with the genius name of Christmas Adam) and usually watch Love Actually and it's just all very christmassy and lovely :)

Anyway, obviously Christmas is a key time for baking and although I rather disappointingly didn't get round to making a gingerbread house I have done rather a lot of Christmas baking. 

I made gluten free christmas cupcakes for my school bazaar using this recipe and just piped melted white chocolate into shapes, left them to solidify on greaseproof paper and put them on top:

We do secret santa at my school and I got my friend Molly, who is one of those people that is extraordinarily tricky to buy for - especially with a £5 budget. I therefore decided my best option was to make gingerbread men and wrap them in a nice box, and they went down very well :)

I used this recipe and then used mixed icing sugar and water into a reasonably thick paste, divided it into bowls and using liquid food colouring dyed each amount a different colour. I piped it onto my biscuits using a small plastic bag with the corner snipped off, although you could also use a piping bag with a small nozzle.

I was asked to make pudding for my friends christmas dinner, and as no one actually likes christmas pudding I thought a yule log was a pretty good plan. However I've since been told that what I made is actually a roulade, not a yule log as it doesn't have icing or branches so, here's the recipe for my very easy christmas roulade:

It Finally Occurred

We baked together.

Even though we've shared a blog for almost 7 months, and known each other much much longer, this seemingly rather obvious event has never actually occurred.

So, before Rosaline leaves for Bristol (sob) we decided that enough was enough, and finally, after many empty promises and cancelled dates, we did it.

And it was so much fun!

This momentous event occurred in Rosaline's lovely kitchen (interrupted by the arrival of the new toaster which was very exciting) and after much indecision (obviously, it's us) we decided to go with trusty BBC Good Food and make...

 'The Ultimate Chocolate Cake'

Even for the BBC, that's quite a large claim. In fact, considering the variety of chocolate cake we have both consumed in our lives, it's an enormous claim. 

But OMG did it live up to it's name.

We decided we were officially ADDICTED. It was so gooey and moist (ew ew ew) and delicious that once we'd started we just couldn't stop. (True Fact: Chocolate is marginally addictive. So, err, that's our excuse for glutenous behaviour)

We made this for our Say Goodbye To Our-Only-Follower Polly Party which was, as you can imagine very emotional, (she went to Manchester yesterday; we're sad) and so this seemed an appropriate cake to make. As in, one you're unlikely to forget in a hurry.

And Ultimate Chocolate anything is an appropriate send off really.

Polly seemed appropriately blown away by the whole thing. The champagne candles are optional (but really quite a necessity, we would say)

Pre Bristol Baking

I head off to Bristol very soon , so this afternoon Ellie and I are going to bake together!!

 

Eek I'm excited. And frantically clearing up my kitchen. Ellie has the nicest kitchen and mine is, at present, putting me to shame. My mother is thrilled by this development and thinks that Ellie should come over more often for baking (rather than just for parties and froyo dates which is normally the case) if it makes me tidy up this much.

 

We can't decide what to make (my crippling indecision once again) so watch this space...

 

I'm just off to buy some eggs.

Excitement!!

 

xxx

Look who's back.

Guess who's back-back-back, back again? Ros is back-back-back, tell your friends.

Yes gals and guys, I am BACK. Back from A levels (beyond horiffic, don't talk to me about it. Melt down in philosophy, still not entirely over it. Maybe getting there), back from post A levels recovery (I had a massage. Apparently, I was her most tense customer ever. That is a claim right there and just goes to show what A levels do to you. Yeah, take that Michael Gove), back from UCAS, accomadation choice and university stress and, more sadly, back from interrailing.

We started from Chiswick with our backpacks; Eurostar to Paris (quick crepe stop. I remebered what sugar was in Fench; proud, proud moment); overnight train from Paris to Barcelona; two nights in Barcelona; Montpellier, Marseille, Nice, then on to Italy; Genova (sang the song that the fat guy in The Princess Diaries sings the whole time we were there. Ya know the one. Ok, well I do.) and then 3 nights in Rome. Ohh it was perfect. You'll hear all about it. You'll also hear all about some of the AMAZE food we consumed. Italian pastries are as yummy as there pizza, pasta and ice cream (and based almost soley on cream or custard and we all know my love for dairy products) and I'm totes going to make some. Or try to at any rate.

So get ready for some serious baking because I have missed having a kitchen (hostels have a toaster. Sometimes a microwave. No tea) and am thus planning excessive amounts of cake making. Sadly, my sister is away and she is key to cake consumption (if you saw her though you would tell me I'm lieing. Swear to God I'm not, she just got all the great genes for a superhuman motabilism) so I'm not entirely sure what we'll do with it all but I'm sure we'll cope somehow. We normally do; one moment I think we'll never have room in our kitchen ever again for all the cupcakes on every surface and then SUDDENLY we have loads of room and I'm feeling strangely full. Still have not got to the bottom of the mystery as to how that happens. All very strange.

I've donned my apron already and Radio 4 is on and I can make tea and so I almost don't mind being home. Lesgo.

Hope you're as ready as I am!

Ros xx  

p.s so I sort of decided that because I want to tell the world about my travels because I'm basically not going to be home this summer (I'm going to New York on Saturday!!!!) I would make a blog about that too. Err take a look if you want. Like, only if you're interested. You totally don't have to. But it would make me happy. http://tomorrowfatewillgetonmybus.blogspot.co.uk/