I can't remember exactly when craft club started but I have a feeling that it must have been about 2007, and at each December gathering at least one of us ends up making a Christmas wreath. This year I obliged, inspired by an idea described to me by my mother after she enthusiastically returned from an inspiring day of creative demonstrations hosted by her local WI branch.
I successfully found and dusted off my metal wreath frame, bought a large ball of green garden twine, selected a few gold baubles from my collection and grabbed the red ribbon - I was ready to begin. Tying the end of the twine to the frame I began to carefully wind it around and around until I had an even shape, which ended up using all of the twine. I had imagined that this would be a fairly swift process but it actually took much longer than I had anticipated. Perhaps the mulled wine, nibbles and general chit chat had something to do with that? Oh, as well as protecting my ball of twine from becoming a new toy for the cat!
That done, I selected 4 golden baubles and suspended them using different lengths of thin red ribbon in the centre of the circle before adding a wide red ribbon from which to hang it on the front door. I did play around with several versions of ribbon bows but ended up deciding that the minimalist look worked best. Simple and, hopefully, robust enough to withstand the wind and rain we have been experiencing recently.
And so, the first Christmas decoration is now up at ElleAyJay Towers!
The next task was to create something festive and edible for the office. I'm not really one for Christmas cards, particularly for colleagues as you invariably end up inadvertently missing someone out. Instead, I try to make something edible to leave by the tea station for everyone to tuck into.
Last year I had to cater for a vegan so opted for Pruffles, also known as Prune and Chocolate Truffles. These went down very well but a couple of colleagues looked a bit disappointed when they appeared since a few weeks earlier I'd been talking about a recipe I have for Brownie Mince Pies. I vowed to make them this year so that's what I've been doing this afternoon.
Quite simply, you make a batch of pastry and line 24 muffin tins as if you were making mince pies. You then make up a batch of chocolate brownie mix (use your favourite recipe) and add in about 200g of mincemeat. Fill each pastry case with the mincemeat-flavoured brownie mix and bake for 20-25 minutes, gas mark 4/160C. Leave in the tins for about 5 minutes before popping each brownie mince pie out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
If you are so inclined, you can top each one with a blob of whipped cream and a sugar-coated cranberry. However, this batch needs to be transported to work in a cycle pannier so I'll be giving that bit a miss. As it is I'm a bit worried that they may not survive the journey and am beginning to think that truffles may have been a better idea after all!
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