Mincemeat muffins

I am very fond of mince pies, and most years I produce a fair few jars of homemade mincemeat in November, in anticipation of the creation of dozens of festive treats. Christmas this year was relatively quiet, and I only used one jar in anger. I didn't even manage to offload any onto unsuspecting friends. Apple and mincemeat crumble accounted for some of the surplus, and at the weekend I made mincemeat muffins. This is a recipe which a friend gave me about ten years ago, when muffins were the new baking trend. I have no idea where it came from!

Ingedients

10 oz plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

0.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda

0.5 tsp salt

3 oz granulated sugar

1 egg

8 fl oz milk

8 fl oz mincemeat

3 fl oz vegetable oil

3 oz sultanas (optional)

icing sugar for dusting

Method

1. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases, or you can just grease them if you want.

2. Sift all the dry ingredients, (except the sultanas, obviously), into a large mixing bowl.

3. Put all the liquid ingredients into another bowl. This is easiest if you use a large measuring jug and start with the mincemeat, then add the milk on top so that the level reaches 16oz and then add the oil. Break the egg into the jug and give the whole thing a good whisk. 

4. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry. Using a wooden spoon mix them quickly together, until no dry flour is visible. Strangely, the batter is supposed to be lumpy! If you are using sultanas, add these with the last few stirs.

5. Fill the muffin cases until they are three-quarters full and bake for 20-25 minutes at 190C/ Gas Mark 5. They are ready when the tops spring back when they are gently pressed. Dust with icing sugar when cool.

 

These didn't hang around very long! I prefer muffins to the sickly sweet cupcakes which supplanted them in the cake-eating public's affections. And as for cake pops...life is just too short. (Apologies to the very accomplished bakers who can actually make them!)

Christmas preparation is underway!

This year it has worked out that we will be celebrating Christmas as the four of us, rather than the large groups of extended family which we are used to. DD and I have started planning - unsurprisingly there will be quite a simple homemade feel to our festivities. I was planning to make a lot of the presents myself; but time has run away with me. Maybe next year??

These are our achievements so far! The very flat parcels at the back are actually Christmas cards. We have made all our Christmas cards for the past three years and the design is getting progressively simpler. Our first design involved punching, stamping, glitter glue...never again! These were very easy to produce as DD had us organised into a production line and kept us in order.

The square pieces of card are going to be bunting. They are made from a pack of cards that have been hanging around for years. For some reason I keep forgetting to use them, so this year we are going to hang them up.

The cracker at the bottom is my first attempt at a homemade cracker! I got my idea from "Homemaker" magazine. (DH bought me a subscription for my birthday. No more guilt as I surreptitiously slip one into my shopping trolley.) However, the basic idea is very clearly explained in this blog here. Not a toilet roll in sight! My cracker is a lot simpler than Torie Jayne's; no pattern punches for me, thank you very much. I will probably stick some patterned paper around the middle of the finished articles. Now I just need to decide on the contents! I am thinking chocolate at the moment...

The red and gold theme of the different decorations is entirely coincidental. I am not that coordinated as a rule. Christmas is about the birth of a baby, family and love and NOT a beautifully decorated house!

A Somerset Christmas

We spent our Christmas with my Dad and my brother's family, which is why it has been a little quiet around here this week. They all live in the Somerset levels, and Dad lives at the foot of the iconic Glastonbury tor. It is a very beautiful area and very different from the equally lovely but crowded corner of the South East where we live. The pace of life seems to slow as you go along the A303. (Usually the traffic does too!)

This is the view from the end of his road!

Like most of England, Somerset has had a very soggy few weeks. I now know why the area is called the Isle of Avalon!

Fortunately Dad lives slightly above the flood level, and, apart from a few hairy moments driving alongside an overflowing river, we were unaffected. The sun did break through occasionally.

We had a lovely week catching up with family. DS had his birthday on the 23rd, my brother's wife had her birthday on the 24th and of course it was Christmas on the 25th so it was a time of many celebrations and much food!

We are now back and easing into the New Year. Today is also six months since I started blogging, and it has been a very interesting journey. I have been challenged, encouraged and inspired by all the wonderful people I have come into contact with, and I am looking forward to the next six months!

 

Mince Pie tasting

I had a fabulous evening yesterday. I am part of a small group of six Mums from church who meet to chat and pray. Last night we decided to have a mince pie tasting. I really love mince pies, so this was almost my perfect Christmassy evening. We all brought different brands of mince pie and did a blind tasting. We had pies ranging from the budget brands up to artisan bakery offerings. I and another friend brought semi-homemade mince pies. I say semi-homemade as I used shop bought mincemeat. I usually make my own, but as the apple tree failed to produce any fruit this year I didn't get round to it. Boxes of apples sitting in the garage tend to motivate me!

Mine were very basic mince pies made with standard shortcrust pastry. My friend was more adventurous than I and did exciting things with orange juice and a star cutter. I felt a bit like I was entering a WI competition as the different pies were sampled, along with cream of course! And the results? We didn't like the artisan bakery pies at all and everyone preferred the homemade pies. Yay!

Festive preparations

Christmas may actually happen in this house....

The puddings have been made and the poinsettia bought. A friend and I made the puddings together, amid much laughter and tea-drinking. The small ones will be for presents.

After reading the blogs of some wonderfully organised people, who appear to be all ready bar stuffing the turkey, I placed quite a few internet orders last week. Unfortunately they all arrived today, I was out, my husband works from home in the loft...let's just say he is a little fitter now.

DD has also been busy making cards and decorations. I'm just happy to see some sun for the sun-catchers! She has made a whole tribe of snowmen. Somehow snowmen and sun doesn't seem like a sensible combination!

Christmas stockings!

I have finally finished the Christmas stockings that I started back in September. They are from a Ravelry pattern. I can spend hours on that website!

I really enjoyed the snowflake pattern. I haven't done Fair Isle knitting in years and it was fun watching the pattern form. It was also quite slow! If you can do both continental and English knitting then it can be much faster, (tutorial here), but I have never conquered continental knitting. Maybe once I am a bit more confident with crochet I will try to learn it. So now my needles are empty. I have some ideas of what to do next, but I really need to get on with my crochet bag. I am half way up the sides and the end is in sight!

Preparing for Christmas, or not...

Christmas is coming a lot faster than I would like this year. My normal approach to the festive season is to make numerous lists and organise everything well in advance. By this time of year the pudding has been made, various packages have been secreted around the house and I am well into making my Christmas cards. This year, apart from making stockings, my approach has been to ignore it and hope it will go away! 

Yesterday DD went off with a friend to a "Christmas Card and Decoration" workshop, put on by a local lady who works for one of the papercraft companies. The results were very impressive. 

This was my favourite!

This is hanging on the banana tree for the time being!

DD did, of course, have access to lots of papercraft tools. We couldn't begin to reproduce these at home, but I have been jolted into action. Plans are under way for rather simpler creations, and some might actually get made. As for the pudding, it's not Stir Up Sunday yet!

Mock Turkey

I have been really enjoying "The Wartime Farm" on the BBC. This is the first of the Farm series that I have seen and I have been very impressed with it. So much so that I spent some of my birthday money on the book!

I had particularly enjoyed the Christmas episode where Ruth knocked up a "Mock Turkey" or "Murkey" for Christmas dinner. It is basically made of stuffing which is  much my family's favourite part of a roast dinner. I had to give it a go! There are lots of recipes for Mock Turkey out there on the web. This one is basically sausagemeat, bread crumbs, herbs and seasoning held together with grated onions and apples. The results are shaped into the shape of a turkey, using parsnips for legs, and then covered with bacon.

As I don't suppose World War Two housewives had food processors I grated the onions and apples by hand. Onions and I don't mix, and by the time I had finished I looked like I had been weeping copiously. Instead of buying sausagemeat, which in my supermarket comes ready seasoned and "herbed", I skinned plain sausages. The psuedo-fowl was baked for an hour and a half in a medium oven.

Of course, it tastes absolutely nothing like turkey. I liked it as I am a sausage fan. DH and DS were similarly keen, preferring it to the real thing, but DD was not so enamoured, labelling it "stodgy". I still have to work out what to do with the leftovers. I am sure the original cooks wouldn't have let any go to waste!