Christmas Treats

I love the week before Christmas almost as much as the big day itself. There’s a kind of energy in the air as people start to tip their work-life balance in favour of meeting up with friends and buying last minute gifts. It’s around this time that I devote a day to some festive baking and that’s when Christmas really begins for me. I put on Ella Fitzgerald’s Christmas album, make sure there’s a big pot of tea on the go and fill the house with the aroma of sugar and spice.

Previous years have been devoted to Christmas cupcakes and dainty macaroons, but this year it’s all about the biscuits. Handily, they’re pretty fool-proof to make, they look great and they last really well stored in an air-tight tin. They’re also brilliant for involving the children as they can do lots of the rolling and cutting themselves. The icing stage might get a little messy, but isn’t that part of the fun?!

Stained Glass Window Biscuits

The by-product of these pretty Christmas tree decorations is the cut-out centres that can be iced, boxed and given as gifts. Check out the latest edition of FPTV where I talk Ellie through how to make them: http://www.festivalplace.co.uk/fptv.htm



Makes 12 large biscuits for the tree plus around 24 small biscuits for icing

300 g plain flour
75 g soft brown sugar
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp Chinese five spice powder
1 tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
150 g butter, cubed
75 g treacle

To decorate:
50 g boiled sweets, crushed
300 g royal icing powder
food colouring of your choice

• Preheat the oven to 170⁰C / gas 5 and line 4 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
• Put all of the biscuit ingredients in a food processor and pulse until the mixture comes together into a ball. Turn it out onto the work surface and knead lightly until smooth.
• Divide the mixture in half and roll the first piece out between 2 sheets of greaseproof paper. Cut out 6 circles with a 12cm pastry cutter then use a variety of festively-shaped cutters to cut out the centres and make use of any off-cuts. Make a hole in the top of each tree biscuit with a skewer for the ribbons to go through.
• Repeat with the second half of the dough then spread the Christmas tree biscuits out on 2 of the trays and the festive shapes out on the other 2, making sure the biscuits don’t touch. Sprinkle a small spoonful of the boiled sweets into the centre of each Christmas tree biscuit.
• Bake the biscuits for 12 – 16 minutes or until firm and cooked through underneath. The centres of the tree biscuits should have melted into a flat window, but just return them to the oven if they need a bit more time.
• Leave the biscuits on the trays to harden for a few minutes before cooling on a wire rack.
• Finish the Christmas tree biscuits by threading a ribbon through the hole at the top and they are ready to hang on the tree.

To ice the cut-out shapes:

• Whisk the royal icing powder with 50ml of cold water for 5 minutes with an electric whisk until smooth and thick. Separate the icing into small bowls and colour with the food colourings of your choice. Spoon half of each icing into small piping bags and pipe a line round the outer edge of each biscuit.
• Stir a few drops of water into the rest of the icing in the bowls until each one is the consistency of double cream. Spoon the coordinating coloured icing onto each biscuit to flood the outline for a professional finish. To make the polka dots in the picture, add small drops of runny icing in a different colour before the background icing sets.
• Once the icing has dried, you can use any leftover outline icing to pipe decorations on top. You can also add edible glitter and silver balls to increase the bling factor or pipe everything in plain angelic white for a sophisticated look.
• When the icing has dried completely you can pack the biscuits into pretty bags and boxes and finish with tissue paper and ribbons for a gift that everyone will love.

Ingredients – the biscuit ingredients are available from M&S. TK Maxx often have some of the edible glitters that make a pretty finishing touch.

Cookie cutters – Debenhams, Procook and TK Maxx all sell cutters in various shapes and sizes and Procook have some really good value baking trays if you need a few extra .

Boxes and paper – Clintons and Paperchase both have some lovely festive boxes, wrapping paper and ribbons – unleash your creative side!

***

Pre-Christmas drinks run down

If you’re meeting up with friends for a pre-Christmas drink, Festival Place is the ideal destination. It’s easy to get to by train, bus or taxi and with the special late night shopping hours this week, you can also multi-task it with some last minute present buying. This is my pick of the perfect places to meet:

For cocktails – With a great range of 25 cocktails, it’s got to be Coal Grill and Bar. Get there early and from 5pm you can take advantage of their half price happy hour when 10 of their specially selected cocktails start from just £3.25! Look out for the small plates and picky bits section of their menu to make an evening of it.

For a proper beer – Lloyds No1 Bar is definitely the place to go if you know your best bitter from your pale ale. Look out for their special Christmas guest ales to really toast the season.

For a glass of wine – Giraffe is my favourite spot when I want to share a bottle or 2 with some friends. They have an interesting range which includes some of the lesser known varieties and the tasting notes on the menu are really helpful. If you’ve over-spent on the Christmas shopping, look out for their Bar Buddies promotion which offers a whopping 50% off their house red and white after 5pm Monday to Friday and after 6pm on Sundays.

For coffee and a catch up – At this time of year, I love Café Revive upstairs at M&S – their big glass window looks out over Santa’s grotto and seeing all the people going about their Christmas shopping below really puts me in a festive mood.

***

This is my last post of 2012, but I’ll be back in 2013. I hope you all have a suitably indulgent Christmas and a very merry New Year!

Happy nibbling!
Fiona B x