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"

Let them eat cake!

Chocolate soldier cake & Pizza cake

Tanya's thoughts:
The soldier creation was chocolate sponge (with chocolate extract to make it REALLY chocolatey) sandwiched together with a chocolate *frosting and again swamped with it all over the cake, almost creating a chocolate moat around the cake. The cake was lovely and surprisingly not too heavy. Obviously I'd recommend the decoration for a young boy's birthday cake or in my case - a grown man's birthday cake :p
James's thoughts: .....

Tanya: James's can't talk right now, he's busy with his Fortress game clan :/






 

The pizza cake was plain sponge (cooked in a pizza pan (11ins), and was actually gluten free (yes the flour worked in this recipe)) with red *frosting (cream cheese, butter, icing sugar and red food paste), grated white chocolate (the cheese) then some fruit imitating pizza toppings. In our case we used 'pepperoni', 'olives', pieces of 'mozzarella'. Actually tasted really nice and quite light - the fruit made it feel light a light summer's cake. Presenting it in a Dominoes pizza box made it look the part and served it with a pizza cutter - great.
Jason's thoughts: "Needs moar garlic bread. No seriously, was enjoyable cake, different yet scrumptious. 8.5/10"
 











 

*Apologies for using the term 'frosting' I know it's American, but icing just conjures up a really thin silver spoon icing.

Toffee apple crumble

 











Tanya's thoughts:
Of course this had to be done for a fireworks night dinner! Eaten after a hearty cheesey chilli and the crumble was served with cream and as you can see from the photo - indoor sparklers. I think the excitement was too much as when the sparklers finished (after a very reluctant start) i felt extremely disappointed :p

This was a recipe found in a Brighton magazine about local food. you basically make a dark toffee sauce with dark muscavado sugar, butter and double cream which you pour over the slightly fried apples. Once cooked the sauce becomes a golden rich colour. The crumble mixture also has ground almonds which gave it a rich flavour (as if that was needed). Lovely and gooey.

James's thoughts: 
Very tasty but let down by sharp apples.