Santa-standard baking!

Recipe: Festive mince pies & apricot bakewell tarts!

Time taken: About an hour

Ingredients: A jar of mincemeat, a jar of apricot jam, 400g plain flour, 320g butter, 180g caster sugar, 3 eggs, 40g ground almonds

Hi readers,

IT’S CHRISTMAS EVE!!!

This is when all the good stuff kicks off! It’s almost Christmasssssssss! Suddenly, we’re not saving all the food and drink anymore… we can freely hammer the kitchen and get bloody hammered!

I’m a little festive today. Literally, brimming with Christmas cheer! I’m perhaps on par, festive spirit-wise, with Buddy in Elf. And I’ve drunk a LOT of coffee. Plus, we went on a family outing this morning to see the new Hobbit film at the cinema… and it’s immense! Literally, it’s over two hours long and a good 50% of that time is made up of proper Middle Earth battle action!

Men with swords + elves with arrows + dwarves with axes = Orc massacre!! It’s a big blockbuster and definitely well matched to my excitement levels today. We even went 3D!  If you can make it to the cinema to see one more film this year: I thoroughly recommend the Hobbit.

Now I’m home and I’ve launched the Christmas playlist oncemore. You have to, really. Garland, Crosby, Rea… all the Christmas classics have been blasting this Christmas Eve. And me and the Mother Bear having been baking up a festive storm in the kitchen! We’ve been baking mince pies and apricot bakewell tarts (apricot as this is the only flavour of jam that my Mother Bear approves of) to feed to the men over Christmas! And OF COURSE they’re for us too. In fact, did we save the guys many? Any? Hmm…

Sooooo, I’m sharing the magic with you! To bake up your very own mince pies and bakewell tarts (fit for Father Christmas to taste tonight when he’s doing his rounds!) here’s what you do…

1. Heat your oven to 200˚C. Grease a 12-hole bun tin with a little butter. Crack open your Baileys!

2. Measure 375g flour and 260g butter into a large mixing bowl, and rub together with your fingertips until the mix resembles fine breadcrumbs.

3. Add 125g of sugar and 1 egg, and stir it up!

4. When it all starts to come together, use your hands to work the dough into a ball and then tip it out onto a lightly floured surface.

5. Roll the pastry out until it’s a few millimetres thick and then use a large round cutter (or, if you can't find it, a pint glass) to cut out 12 large pastry circles. Press these into each slot of your bun tin.

6. Next, fill 6 of these pastry cases with a teaspoon of mincemeat in each. Use a small round cutter to cut out 6 small circles from your remaining pastry. Pop these over your mincemeat-filled cases, and use your fingertips to press the lids down at the edges, so no mincemeat can bubble out when they are in the oven.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: I take a sharp knife now and score a couple of lines in the top of each lid. I think this is done so that some of the heat can get out of them in the oven. (???) It’s just a tradition, really.

7. Crack an egg into a mug and use a fork to beat it up into a yolky mix. Take a pastry brush and dip it into this mix, then brush over the top of your 6 mince pies. This is to glaze them and make them turn golden when they bake.

8. Clean your mixing bowl and measure into it: 55g butter, 55g sugar, 40g ground almonds and a tablespoon of flour. Crack an egg into the bowl and stir it all up! This is the frangipane mix for your bakewells.

9. Spread a little apricot jam in the bottom of your 6 empty pastry cases then  spoon frangipane over the top of this until the case is full. If you have any pastry left you might want to arrange it over the top in strips or festive shapes (like Christmas trees or holly leaves). Or you can sprinkle flaked almonds over the top, if you have any to hand. Or just leave them as they are.

10. Safely transport into the oven to bake for about 20 minutes. They should all turn golden on top and your bakewells might rise (although ours didn't much) and then they’re ready to come out! Leave your lovely pastries on the side to cool in their tin for half an hour, then transfer onto a plate. Dust with icing sugar (so they look like they’ve been out in the snow) and serve them up!

ChefBeHere Top Tip: Remember to save Father Christmas the bestest, biggest mince pie for when he visits tonight. This is of vital importance.

And here’s me and the Mother Bear’s baking while cooling

I’m quite proud of us, really! I’m literally shaking today with caffeine and Christmas excitement and my mum’s had a loooot of jobs she’s been working through this morning (really, it’s mad, she’s driven her Mr into work, been out Christmas food shopping, cleaned the house from top to bottom, worn the dog out on a big walk, given the bird’s cage a festive spruce, welcomed next door’s new born baby to the world… she’s a woman on a mission this Christmas Eve!) but we both got it together for some solid mother-daughter baking time today.

Fast forward a couple of decades... and we're still larking around together!

And, god, we did a good job! Our pastries taste like THE BOMB. Unbelievably, eating one of these mince pies just now, I realised it’s only my second one of the whole Christmas! And the first one was sadly shop bought (and eaten in sub-zero temperatures in an outdoor marquee following the CU Carol Service at uni… I could barely feel my lips at the time) so this was a far merrier mince pie experience! They taste incredible! Just pure butter and stodge and Christmas spirit. I love it!

So PLEASE go warm their hearts and treat your family. Bake them up a batch of Christmassy pies and tarts to munch over the next few days. They will love you more when you do. And OBVIOUSLY you can’t be leaving any shop bought fodder out for Father Christmas later! He’s going to be so busy tonight he needs the real deal! A proper homemade mince pie, please!

Readers, I wish you the best of luck in the kitchen baking up a storm. And here’s wishing you a very merry Christmas Day tomorrow! Have a warm, wonderful time with your family.

Take care this Christmas,

Hayley

CHOC-NAN-ICOT... WHAT?

Recipe: Chocnanicot Muffins, I call them

Time Taken: 1 hour

Ingredients: 150g marg, 250g sugar,3 eggs, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, 2 ripe bananas, 250g plain flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 125g ground almonds, 150g dried apricots, 150g plain chocolate aaaaand either one big chocolate cookie or a few small cookies

 

 Hi readers,

Today, it’s Wednesday! It’s another day in the big run up to Christmas. For me, another day of general laziness and festive cheer. You can’t begrudge me this, readers, because after I graduate in June I’m probably going to be working for the next 50 years of my life. And some of those years I might have to work on Christmas Day! The horror! So I’m allowed one last good Christmas. And I hope, whether working or not, you’re having a good Christmas season, too. :)

 

So this morning I was reading the news headlines, keeping up with the world beyond this house, and I read about a student from Lancashire, called Dominique, who lost her bank card on a night out this December and was offered £3 by a homeless man, called Robbie, (this was the last of his money!) to get a taxi home. Dominique didn’t take Robbie’s money but she was really touched by his offer. 

And so, soon after, Dominique started asking friends and family and so on, to each donate £3 towards raising the money to help get Robbie somewhere to live. She also slept rough for the night alongside homeless people such as Robbie, in order to raise further money for the cause. And Dominique’s raised over £20,000!! Isn’t that incredible?!

I’m so wowed by what she’s done! As my friends at uni and my family at home know, I struggle a lot with the cold at winter. Up in Newcastle, I’ve been really worried this year about the homeless people near our university library. It’s been bitterly cold and all the students trudge past them each day to go sit in a heated building, and they’re often still there when we come out at the end of the day. I don’t know how they can bear it. 

And I know there are a lot of people in need around the world, and a lot of people in need in the UK. And you can’t help everyone blah blah. And the actions of some homeless people may have contributed towards them becoming homeless blah blah. But it’s bloody awful. And I hate that I don’t have the money to buy the people hanging out around the library a cup of coffee, at least. Something warm. When I have a proper job, I’m going to try to buy a homeless person a hot drink every day in winter.

So today, in my warm home, I’ve been baking up a storm for my family. And I hope I inspire you to do some baking too! It’s good for the soul. :) But I was thinking, maybe, if you don’t have enough friends and family to feed 12 muffins to, is there someone in need that you could offer a muffin to?  Maybe you could make someone’s day by being generous beyond belief, and offering them a home baked muffin? 

Plus, if this isn’t for you (and sadly I don’t know where to find people living on the streets in Woodhouse) or you’ve been really taken up to help people in need this Christmas, there are loads of ways you can spread some magic in December! You could help out at a soup kitchen? You could spend some time with an elderly person on your road? If it snows, you could even help them to shovel their front path? You can make such a difference with your time.

Also, I found a really cool website where you can donate £5 to cover the cost of a birthday cake being baked especially for a child in Sheffield, whose family is finding it hard to provide one on their special day. Isn’t that the best idea ever? Check it out: http://www.freecakesforkidssheffield.com/

Anyway, I’ve said my piece. And I hope that, this December, some of you might be thinking about the people who don’t have lovely homes to go home to. I know I will. And I wish them all the best for getting through Christmas. 

And now I can tell you about my baking!! Today, readers, I had the itch to do some serious baking in the kitchen! But I’m really broke so I was strictly limited to the ingredients we have in the house. This is normally a big issue, but I was pleasantly surprised!! The lovely mother has come through, and stocked up for my visit home. :) In the end I decided to combine banana, apricot and chocolate… in a moment of muffin-inspired genius!

To rustle up some of your very own Chocnanicot Muffins, follow these 20 simple steps…

1.       As it’s very nearly Christmas, pour yourself a drink. Why not?

2.       Line a muffin tray with 12 muffin cases.

3.       Prep your apricots! Measure out 150 grams of them and chop them up into quarters using a sharp knife.

 

4.       Prep your bananas! Peel them both and use a fork to mash them up.

 5.       Prep your chocolate! Break it up into pieces in a bowl.

6.       Prep your cookie! Use your hands to crumble it up into tiny pieces in a bowl.

7.       Heat your oven to 180°C.

8.       Measure your marg and sugar into a large mixing bowl. Add a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Then crack your eggs into the bowl. 

9.       Stir it up!

10.   Now stir in your mashed bananas. So much goo!

11.   Place a sieve over your bowl and sift your flour and baking powder over the mix. 

 

12.   Stir it up!

13.   Add your ground almonds and your apricot chunks.

 14.   Once more, stir it up!

15.   Spoon  your mix evenly between your 12 muffin cases until they’re all mostly full.

 16.   Transport safely into the oven to bake for half an hour. Catch a show on TV!

ChefBeHere Top Tip: The ad break of your show (I was watching Friends) is the perfect time to turn your muffins around in the oven so that they’re facing a different way, just in case some are baking quicker than others.

17.   When your muffins are golden and well risen, take them out of the oven and leave to cool.

18.   After a while (and maybe another drink) stick your chocolate in the microwave to melt for a couple of minutes. Don’t let it burn, mind.

19.   Spoon your melted chocolate evenly over each muffin.

20.   Sprinkle your muffins with cookie crumble for decoration! Serve to your adoring friends and family, and then anyone else you’re feeling generous towards.

It wasn’t to be this simple for me, readers. Disaster struck on Step 18 when I burned my chocolate in the microwave. It wasn’t fit for use whatsoever, and we had no more chocolate or no icing sugar in the house. What a nightmare! However, I got inventive and managed to melt some marshmallows in the microwave, stirring hot chocolate powder into the marshmallow goo little by little, and I used this instead of melted chocolate to stick my cookie crumble on to my muffins with. Phew!

Here’s my marvelous muffins!

What do you think? Impressive, huh? I’m so proud!! Decoration is not something I normally bother with. My baking often flies straight from the oven shelves into the mouths of hungry flatmates. And it’s such a shame! I’m so glad to day that I took the time to do something on top of my muffins. Even inspite of the disaster I had in the kitchen. Because they look so pretty!

Now, I can’t yet report on how these babies taste. They’re under lock and key, being saved for pudding after our tea later. But hopefully they taste as good as they look! As I was botching various recipes together, and turning loaf recipes into muffin ones, I was a little uncertain about whether these angels would rise or not or whether they might even explode, but I hit it on the head apparently. Who knew. They domed to perfection! 

So… go! Shoo! Stop drooling over my photos and go bake your own muffins! Do it! If you don’t have the apricots you can sub in any other dried fruit. And if you’ve already overdone the chocolate this Christmas, you could drizzle glace icing over your muffins and stick a piece of dried banana on top, there’s your decoration! Let me know how this one turns out.

And remember, always, to be grateful for the kitchen you bake in.

Bake safely this Christmas amigos,

Hayley

HEALTH NUT

Recipe: Apricot Power Bars

Time Taken: An hour

Ingredients: 2 bananas, 100g butter, 80g oats, half a mug of Brazil nuts, half a mug of dried apricots, half a mug of seeds (e.g. sunflower and pumpkin)

Hi readers,

Today is December 14^th. This time in ten days we’ll be celebrating Christmas Eve! Such an exciting thought. But today is still on the 14^th. There’s somewhat of a way to go until Christmas. Boo! But that makes for lots of time for fitting in festive fun in the meanwhile. :)

And I’ve been having looooads of fun! Yesterday, me and the mum bagged ourselves some Christmas edition Starbucks and hit Cineworld to see the new Paddington Bear film… and we loved it! It’s such a wintry, British family film. Yes, a large proportion of the audience were under-10. But there were adults there, too! And, maybe some weren’t accompanying kiddies, like me and my mum… haha, oh well, we’re all young at heart.

Paddington Bear! All the way from Darkest Peru :)

 

And TODAY it’s a big family meal! I get to see cousins, and aunts and uncles, my grandparents, and we’re all drinking and wearing paper hats, I hope. Feasting it up for a big Christmas pub gathering! There’s much excitement over this meal. I can’t wait to catch up on everyone’s lives and hear about their Christmas plans. And eeeeat!

Alas, I’m not actually cooking again today. But yesterday’s blog had me thinking about two things. Firstly, all of the luxury foods in the cupboards at home, and which order I should possibly try to eat them all in. Second, the quote that reads “Love yourself enough to live a healthy lifestyle”. This is really striking a chord with me at the moment! I think perhaps at Christmas, with all the feasts and dinners that come with the occasion, people get a little out of touch with their bodies. Maybe we don’t love ourselves enough at this time of year.

So, today I got up in time to catch a beautiful sunrise in Sheffield. It’s a harsh time of year at the moment, but the weather can make for some spectacular views. And I’m more rural at home than at uni, so there’s real countryside to frame sunrises and sunsets with.

Woodhouse this morning

 

In the spirit of snaffling all and any luxury foods, I decided to chop Brazil nuts on my muesli. Is there any higher indulgence at 9am?? I think not.

My bowlful of billion dollar nuts

 

Then, guilted by breakfast, I signed up for the morning dog walk with my mummy bear and her little spawn of the devil. I was repenting for my nut greed.

Exercising alongside my mum and the Evil Knievel

 

And I was thinking about all the nuts in and trying to be good, and it reminded me of a really good recipe I made last time we had exams at uni! This was a recipe I found for special energy bars, to help my flatmates through revision and the hard times. They were all natural, chock full of things like nuts and seeds and dried fruit, and they went really well! Literally, I didn’t even have exams and I was munching them up. They were very tasty.

Here’s how they look in the recipe photo!

 

So, hopefully over December I’m going to have a go at them again at home, and I’ll be ready with the recipe for when exams come around again in January. Fighting the flab and fighting exams! And guys this recipe is the bomb. You literally need a knife, a fork, a bowl, a pan, a spoon and a baking tray. Minimal equipment required. No decoration on the bars. This recipe’s a no-faff, no-stress affair. Just don’t mention that part to your flatmates. :D

Here’s how to throw together your very own Apricot Power Bars, in ten easy steps…

1.       Heat your oven to 200ᵒC.

2.       Peel your bananas into a pan and mash them up using a fork.

3.       Add your butter to the pan and place on a hob over a medium heat.

4.       Stir gently until the two combine and set this mix aside to cool.

5.       Chop up your nuts and apricots, and chuck them in a bowl.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: Don’t chop these too small so that they disappear into the mix! I think it’s nice to chop them a little bigger, so that there are good fruit and nut chunks within the Power Bars.

6.       Add your seeds and oats.

7.       Pour your banana-butter mix over the top of your dry ingredients, and stir this all up into one great modge.

8.       Press the batter on to a baking tray covered with baking paper.

9.       Bake in the oven for half an hour, until golden brown on top.

10.   Safely take your tray out of the oven and leave to cool, before you cut your bars from the slab. And there you have it! Some food for the mind and the soul.

Here’s how mine went…

 

Now, I love dried apricots and they’re full of iron so they’re really good for you, and good to snack on if you’re vegetarian, but if you’re not a fan I guess you could mix the apricot portion in this recipe with raisins perhaps, or swap them entirely for an alternative like dried cranberries? And any vegans out there, you can veganise this recipe by just switching the butter for almond butter! So there are no excuses. This recipe is for everyone.

So give it a try! What do you think to Apricot Power Bars? Tempting to try? Delicious to eat? Those are my personal opinions. Although, I am a lover of literally every ingredients in this recipe. So I’m slightly biased. But still! Please, give this one a go. It’s a really healthy, really fun recipe to try. And I don’t think December calls for anything more, really. Get loving yourselves, readers!

And power on safely,

Hayley