Gingerbread cupcakes

 













Tanya's thoughts:

So I had this brilliant idea to make gingerbread muffins but in cake cases (as i find a whole muffin too filling sometimes) and then added a lovely cream cheese icing on top (and this is the really exciting bit) then added some gingerbread men sprinkles!! they tasted of cinnamon to be honest but looked great. If any of my family are reading this - I may make these again for Heather's buffet.

Jack's birthday beer cakes

 















Tanya's thoughts:

Ok, so I used a Mrs Beeton recipe for cider cake and substituted the cider for ale. Then made a butter icing with more ale - the icing was lovely and frothy like a beer! A decorated the cakes with pints of lager sweets.

(I was going to ask Jack for his 'thoughts' but then realise why bother when a picture says a thousand words - insert funny photo of jack eating cake)

Cinnamon swirls

Tanya's thoughts:

This was a recipe from the 'Hairy Bikers 12 days of Christmas' book and they were lovely! Bit fiddly for a breakfast I grant you, as it is essentially making bread and I could have done a better job at rolling it together. But it smelt amazing when they were in the oven and they tasted divine. As we were eating this a celeb on a kitchen program said her food hell was cinnamon. There must be something mentally wrong with her.

James's thoughts:

"A surprise treat and extremely tasty."

Chick-chick-chicken pie

 












Tanya's thoughts:

This was Jamie's 30 minute chicken pie. Not really much to say except it was quick and easy to make and tasted lovely! liked the consistency and the sauce was rich with the mustard and crème fraiche. MUST make again. Roger that.

Hot schnocolate

 

















Tanya's thoughts:

This is from Nigella's Christmas book. it is proper hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps or in my case creme de menthe as have tried to buy the schnapps for years and have given up. So technically it's not hot schnocolate but I refuse to denounce the name as that was the main reason for trying this recipe :p I admit the whipped cream and crushed peppermint candy canes were a naughty extra but hey ho it is Christmas!


James's thoughts:

"This rocks"

Heavenly hot chocolate

Tanya's thoughts:
If angels could only drink one thing - this would be it. Nigella's hot chocolate (who else?). Basically milk with chocolate, brown sugar, honey, Cinnamon, vanilla essence and dark rum = the taste of heaven. Nigella's recipe uses dark chocolate which was too rich/bitter for my taste so I substitute plain chocolate and it the result is divine. In fact we've had this every winter for quite a few years now so the taste is not only lovely but familiar too.


James's thoughts:
(he said he can't do this anymore) :/ Well at least he's drinking it if not commenting on it ;p

Winter grub

Beef ale stew with caramelised onion dumplings

Tanya's thoughts:
I'm determined to find the perfect stew this winter and this one was pretty good actually. Beef, onion, leek, carrot, parsnip, cut up dried prunes (that last one was recommended by my friend Nicki and was a great addition) and thyme cooked in an ale for 3 hours in the oven. The ale was 'Tetley' (no not the tea silly) and  it made the stew smell almost perfume like. It tasted lovely. The dumplings were a nice surprise as seemed quite simple - frying the red onion in groundnut oil until golden and mixing them into the rest of the dumpling ingredients (including mustard powder and chives). The only criticism was Delia (actually this stew was a hybrid between Delia and Jamie recipes) advised after cooking the stew for hours to remove from oven, top with dumplings and then return to oven without the lid - but I found this dried up the stew - big time. Maybe some people like their stews this way? I prefer a nice gravy personally. A lesson for next time.

 
James's thoughts:
"Very sumptuous"