Merry Christmas

After a manic few weeks I have finally made and delivered all the presents including one or two jars of chilli jam, some marinaded olives, some spicy nuts, and some incredibly cute (even if I do say so myself!) goldfish mittens.

It just leaves me time to say Merry Christmas to one and all and share an image of this year's Christmas decoration.

Have a wonderful Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year.

Mega Mince Pie

After getting into the Christmas spirit back in September by making Cranberry Chutney and some mincemeat, I decided it was about time the mincemeat got used. Well, some of it at least. I remember making some mince pies with a frangipane topping a year or so ago so dug out the recipe and got baking.

I decided to follow the recipe to the letter, just substituting normal flour for gluten-free. The pastry had the addition of ground almonds, some icing sugar and the finely grated zest of an orange and seemed to be coming together really well.  Since gluten-free pastry is very fragile - gluten gives pastry and dough a stretchy quality that is entirely lacking without it - I always roll it out between two sheets of clingfilm as this helps to keep it all together and also helps when transferring it into any sort of pie tin or flan case. However, my patience was growing rather thin as I attempted to cut out 9cm discs of this very fragile mixture and line deep mince pie tins with it. I was up against the clock as I had a date with a friend, and things weren't going at all well. I had already scrapped two attempts to line just the first of 12 pie 'holes' and the pastry was in danger of being over worked or even thrown in the bin in frustration.  I therefore took the executive decision to make one giant mince pie rather than the more traditional individual ones. Well, the baking process was supposed to be enjoyable and it was rapidly becoming the opposite. I'm also a firm believer in cooking and baking with love for the people I love and things were feeling rather doomed at this point!

A quick re-roll of the pastry on fresh clingfilm gave me a large circle which I easily lifted into a 23cm flan tin. The rest was simple - spread it with a jar of homemade mincemeat and make up a frangipane mixture to cover it, finishing with a sprinkle of flaked almonds.

The mega mince pie came out of the oven (180C or gas mark 4) about 35-40 minutes later and was bundled straight into the car for the drive to my friend's house. I have to admit that my car has never smelt so good! The pie went down a storm and the addition of the orange zest in the pastry was sheer genius. This is definitely a recipe to be repeated!

For the pastry:

125g plain flour, or gluten-free equivalent

50g ground almonds

75g lightly salted butter, chilled and cubed

25g icing sugar, sifted

Finely grated zest of 1 orange

1 large egg yolk (add a bit of the white if using gluten-free flour)

For the frangipane topping:

100g lightly salted butter, at room temperature

100g caster sugar

1 large egg

100g ground almonds

1 tbsp plain flour (or gluten-free equivalent)

A sprinkling of flaked almonds for the top

A simple luxury

Are you familiar with the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs? It has been going for years and the format is that of an interview where guests are asked to choose eight discs or music tracks that they would want to have with them if they were to be castaway on a desert island. They also get to choose a book and a luxury item.

After a week in rural Ireland earlier this Autumn - hardly a desert island I know, but bear with me please - where I lost the only lip salve that I had with me on day two and was unable to find a shop that sold any sort of replacement for another 5 days, I swiftly realised that my desert island luxury would have to be a lifetime supply of lip balm.

I am normally the person that has one in every coat pocket, every bag, as well as one in the car and one by the bed. Whilst on the ferry to Ireland I soon realised that the coat I had taken had no lip salve in the pocket (what do they say about making assumptions?) and it is the one that I had in the car that fell out of my pocket on the second day. It may seem ridiculous but I can't tell you how much I missed being able to give my lips a quick slather.

Anyway, after a couple of successful attempts to make my own body lotion I thought I would turn my hand to making some lip balm. The ingredients seem to be very similar to body lotion so it was just a case of adjusting the ratios and the volume. And if you had the ability to make the one thing you realise you really struggle to live without, then why wouldn't you at least give it a go?

Having had this mini project in mind for some time, I had been setting aside any small pot that I thought would be useful. One had contained lip balm, another was a small glass jar that originally contained an ointment and the rest had contained free samples of various beauty products.

The next task was to measure out the solid elements for the lip balm. This was 14g beeswax pastilles, 14g Shea butter and 7g of cocoa butter. These were melted together in a metal jug placed in a pan of water.

It's the beeswax which keeps the balm solid when the room temperature begins to rise, so this took quite some time to melt, but once I had a liquid I then added 26ml of apricot kernel oil, 6ml of caster oil and a few drops of vitamin E. As these oils were cold they instantly solidified half of the melted wax and butters but about a minute in the warm jug, still in the hot water, soon resulted in a clear runny liquid. Removing the jug from the hot water I quickly added 12 drops of sweet orange essential oil and poured the melted butters and oils into my prepared pots where they swiftly began to solidify.

With this new stock of lip balm and the ability to make more in minutes, I'm hoping I'm never going to be without again and will be all set to be castaway. Now I just need to decide on the eight discs and book I will be taking with me... would it be Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy or the complete novels of Jane Austin...? Hmmm, lots to think about!