Christmas Eve Baking

It's almost Christmas and as you know, I've been doing a lot of baking leading up to it. This year has quite definitely roughed me up (actually, it feels more like I got hit repeatedly by a bus) so I want to do something that makes me happy, even if it means I do it quite a bit. Christmas has some incredible baking flavours and I'll be attaching the recipes as I go so you can see what's going on. So here's how my day went...

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Part 1: Rise and Shine

I got up nice and early to start baking. Last night, I had sort of planned that if I was going to spend a long time baking in the kitchen, I didn't want to get too much in the way of lunch time so I wanted to be finished before 2pm. I left some wiggle room just in case something went wrong and calculated that I should start at around 6am and that's what I did.

Now, instead of just starting all at once - I wanted to plan everything out. It is important to plan things out so you don't feel like you're rushing around the kitchen all the time. You want a nice calm morning with lots of scents and of course, the 80s Radio Station (well, that's what I have on when I'm baking).

I decided to make my biscuits first, then my pastry and finally, my cupcakes. Why? Well, whilst I'm making the cupcakes, the biscuits can cool which means that whilst the cupcakes are cooling, I can start decorating the biscuits. I can feel like I'm going constantly without wondering what I should be doing next. Having the pastry in the middle is nice to break up the two more difficult bakes because shortcrust pastry mince pies are quite simple.

So if you're like me and you want to plan everything out, make sure you have an 80s radio station to listen to and of course, a huge cafetière full of Skull Crusher's French Vanilla Coffee.

Buy the coffee below!

Let's take a look at what I was doing...

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Part 2: Baking!

Making biscuits is one of the things I really enjoy so when it comes to lemon and coconut shortbread, I would definitely select that to do first and foremost. I cannot stress this enough but my friend, please chill your dough in the fridge. You should always chill your dough. You can see my slippers in the last picture and if you're wondering, yes that is a picture of my set-up on the top left.

Again, plan the way you're going to go with this so it's nice and relaxing. I would prepare the lemon and the coconut beforehand. If you want a variation on this recipe, swap out the coconut for ginger (but make sure you use powdered ginger, not fresh).

The recipe is below...

Let's go to the finished result then!

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Now on to the shortcrust pastry!

If you would like to take a look at the recipe, you'll find it below:

Yes, I'm back with more mince pies and yet again, I have put a thin layer of icing on top of them. I never push my icing circles down to give people the option of taking it off and placing it on the side. Mincemeat can be very sickly sweet and some people don't want the extra sweetness of the icing as well. Sometimes, if I have some extra pastry, I make some Christmas Trees out of them and stick them in the pies after cooking them. I had no extra pastry this time and managed to make eight mince pies!

This is often where I fill up on coffee as well, so if you're like me - you probably want to refill your press right now...

(several hours later - after they've been decorated...)

Again, always remember to chill your dough!

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Toasted Marshmallow Cupcakes!

Last of all, there's the cupcakes. These cupcakes will perhaps require their own recipe so let me introduce it to you...

Ingredients:

• 110g Butter
• 110g Brown Sugar
• 110g Mini Marshmallows
• 110g Self Raising Flour
• 2x Large Eggs

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For the chocolate ones you will also need:

• 110g Dark Chocolate Powder
• 110g Chocolate Buttons

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How To:

1. Line a cupcake tray with 12 cupcake cases (I made 24 and I have two cupcake trays so I lined both of them)
2. Preheat your oven to 180/C
3. Put your marshmallows in the microwave for 30 seconds to 1 minutes. Make sure they are a tiny bit brown
4. Cream together your butter and sugar so that it is almost smooth
5. Add your eggs and mix some more until smooth again
6. If you are making the chocolate ones, add the chocolate powder and buttons now
7. Add your marshmallows and mix in so that your marshmallows are mixed into the batter
8. Add the self-raising flour and mix until you've formed a cake batter
9. Spoon your mixture into your cupcake cases and bake for 15-20 minutes. You will probably notice the tops turning a brownish colour because of the marshmallows - don't worry and just continue to check on them until they are done
10. Take them out and let them cool for ten or so minutes before removing them from the tray

And now for the finished cakes!

And the chocolate ones...

Part 3: Conclusion

Most of my time was taken up with decorating if I'm going to be perfectly honest. I hate decorating so that was not really my thing - though I did enjoy the fact it was Christmas baking I was doing - normally I wouldn't really bother decorating my cakes and biscuits as nobody eats the icing anyway. But, I think I did well here. I finally finished, after getting cramps in my hands, forgetting to eat breakfast and drinking copious amounts of coffee - at around 12:30pm. Six and a half hours later. 😂

Finally, I actually remembered to eat and so, I consumed quite a bit of cheese from The Great British Cheese Company - I would suggest checking them out if you haven't already. I've bought cheese from them for the past few years now...

Link below:

I guess I'm all set for tomorrow!

Merry Christmas to all of you!