Playful yummy bakes for modern home bakers
Cranberry pop tarts. These are such a fun and completely delicious treat, particularly in the winter when cranberries are in season. It’s a great recipe for when you’ve got leftover cranberry sauce that you don’t know what to do with. The tart and zingy cranberry …
White chocolate and cranberry cupcakes. This is such a beautiful festive bake. Great for anyone that wants an easy, stunning little showstopper. They’re even better for anyone that don’t like mincemeat. White chocolate and cranberries are such a gorgeous combo. The tart brightness of the …
Sloe gin cranberry sauce is exactly the sort of easy peasy recipe you can knock up in a flash. For me, the Christmas table would be naked without a little cranberry sauce to have on the side. Not only is it delicious with the tart berries, orange and warming spices, but the sloe gin is the shining star. It brings out all of the fruity flavours. A real celebration of winter seasonal ingredients.
No stress kitchen pottering is something I love to do. As the nights draw in and everything feels that bit colder I feel comforted by all the twinkle lights around.
It’s such a treat and made in minutes, giving you plenty of time to get on with all the rest of the festive jobs.
Is cranberry sauce just for Christmas day? Absolutely not. This recipe will make enough for the big day, leftovers and can be used in a range of sweet goodies too. I used mine to make delicious white chocolate and cranberry cupcakes and cranberry and orange pop tarts. Seriously, let your creativity run wild.
340g fresh (or frozen) cranberries
1 orange (zest and juice)
½ tsp ground cinnamon
⅛ tsp ground cloves
50ml sloe gin (or you could use port or simply water if you prefer)
130g caster sugar
This is a super speedy recipe to make.
Simply, wash your cranberries and add them to a medium saucepan.
Add in all the rest of the ingredients and over a low heat cook the cranberries for about 10 minutes, until they burst and soften.
Take the pan off the heat and give it a final stir.
Remember, the sauce will continue to thicken as it cools, so don’t worry if it looks a little loose at this stage.
This will happily sit in the fridge for a week. Or you can pop some in the freezer to use over the festive season. If you’re making the sauce ahead of Christmas, give it a stir before serving to break the sauce up a bit.
Looking for other festive recipe ideas? Check out our Nutella mince pies; Gingerbread Nutella sandwich cookies, Mince pie Christmas cupcakes or our Reindeer Christmas chocolates
Can’t get enough of cranberries? Our Cranberry and apple curd is delicious and fab for breakfast with porridge or with scones for a festive cream tea.
I just love a recipe that takes minutes to make but delivers big on flavour and indulgence. This gingerbread hot chocolate does exactly that. Such a treat. Full of warming spices and rich dark chocolate gorgeousness, you simply must make time for at least one …
What’s better than a gingerbread cookie at Christmas? That would be two gingerbread cookies. What could be even better than that? Well, that would be smothering them with nutella and making a cookie sandwich. You’re welcome. These gingerbread nutella sandwich cookies are delicious and a …
Nutella mince pies, now this is a delightful way to shake up your festive routine. In our house, we always make a batch or two of mince pies, often on Christmas Eve, and they’re such a comforting nostalgic bake that I can’t see this changing any time soon. That being said, it’s fun to mix things up now and then and these are particularly great for those that maybe aren’t the biggest fans of mince pies…the nutella and hazelnut and orange pastry do a great job at mellowing the intenseness of the mincemeat. They are just delicious. Served hot is my favourite with these, maybe with cream or ice cream, why not, but they freeze brilliantly too.
Happy baking.
170g plain flour
85g unsalted butter (fridge cold)
pinch of salt
30g icing sugar
55g finely chopped hazelnuts
1 orange (zest)
1 large egg
3 tbsp Nutella
9 tbsp mincemeat
Makes 18-24 star topped mince pies
First, let’s make the pastry. In a food processor pour your flour, salt, fridge cold butter and icing sugar and pulse until the butter is combined and it resembles fine bread crumbs.
Finely chop the hazelnuts.
Add in the orange zest, hazelnuts and the egg and pulse to combine until you have a ball of dough.
Flatten slightly, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes or longer if you have it, to allow the pastry to rest.
Spoon in the mincemeat and nutella into a bowl and stir to combine.
Preheat your oven to 200°C and place a baking tray in the oven to heat up too. (This will help the bottoms of the pies cook evenly)
Cut your pastry in half and wrap up one portion to use later. Begin to roll out the pastry in a circle until it’s roughly ¼ inch thick. Cut out circles to match the size of your shallow pie tins. Then add a tsp of filling and top with stars. (Dabble the edges of the pastry cases to help the stars stick to the sides.)
Then brush the tops with egg or milk and bake in a hot oven for about 12 minutes.
Continue rolling and filling the cases until you have used all the pastry.
Once the mince pies come out of the oven, place them on a wire rack to cool and then dust with icing sugar to serve.
These freeze really well, so you can batch them up and defrost and eat whenever you fancy and will last a few months. If you’re eating them straight away, they’ll keep for 2-3 days in an airtight container.
To flash freeze, put the pies on a baking tray (that’ll fit in your freezer) on a single layer and freeze for about an hour, to flash freeze. Then you can pop them all in a bag after that.
Looking for more festive baking ideas? Try our Mince pie Christmas cupcakes, Mince pie cookies; Chocolate nutella muffins – with a crunchie topping, or our Fruit and nut fudge; all delicious and Christmassy. Perfect for the holidays.
Mince pie Christmas cupcakes. Oh festive baking; in my mind there really isn’t anything better and complete to make me feel all cosy and Christmassy. Mince pies are such a classic staple in the UK, but I have to admit I’ve never been the biggest …
Fruit and nut fudge Fruit and nut is a classic combo and it works so well as a festive treat in this rich fruit and nut fudge. Filled with indulgent chocolate infused with coffee and vanilla, this is a seriously tasty no bake treat that …
Mince pie muffins. Tradition is such a comforting thing around this time of year; the nostalgia and memories of our holiday routines but sometimes it’s fun to mix things up and this is where this festive mashup comes into its own.
Our family always made a fresh batch of mince pies on Christmas Eve, ready to leave out for Father Christmas which is something I wouldn’t want to change, but there are 12 days of Christmas after all and so plenty of opportunity for creativity. These mince pie muffins are definitely the classics’ sassier cousin who’s come to stay for the holidays. Love it.
These festive treats are filled with spice and mincemeat, covered in cinnamon sugar and topped with a vibrant clementine icing. Perfect eaten any time.
For the muffins:
275g self-rising flour
8 tbsp mincemeat
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice
½ tsp ground cinnamon
100g melted butter
¼ tsp salt
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
50g caster sugar
225ml milk
For the topping – granulated sugar, ground cinnamon, 80g melted butter and clementine icing
Clementine icing:
200g sifted icing sugar
zest of 2 clementines and juice of 1-2 (depending on the consistency of the final icing)
Makes 12 muffins
Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C/Gas Mark 6.
Either line a muffin pan with cake cases or using additional butter than listed in the recipe, brush melted butter and dust with flour to ensure that your muffins come out easily.
Weigh out all of the muffin ingredients (apart from the additional sugar, butter and cinnamon for the coating once they are cooked).
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.
Using a medium ice cream scoop, portion out the muffin batter and bake in the middle of the oven for 15 minutes. The muffins will be lightly browned, springy to the touch and coming away from the edges when they are done.
Leave to cool for 5 minutes in the tin before taking the muffins out.
Dip each of the muffins into the melted butter and roll them in the granulated sugar and cinnamon and leave them to cool completely on a wire rack.
To make the icing, mix the sifted icing sugar with the zest and juice of the clementines. You are looking for a consistency of double cream. Add more icing sugar if you think it is too thin and add more clementine juice if you need to thin the icing down a bit.
Once cooled, top each muffin with the clementine icing and top with a little extra mincemeat. Enjoy.
Do not over mix your muffin batter, once the ingredients are combined, you’re done. Don’t worry about lumps either, a lumpy batter often makes the lightest muffins; what a baking paradox.
Make sure to dip your muffins into the butter and sugar when they are still warm, the sugar will stick better that way.
An ice cream scoop ensures that the muffins are an even size but of course you can scoop out the batter with spoons.
Want more simple recipe ideas like this one? Try my Apple pie muffins, I think you’ll really love them.
Looking for more festive baking suggestions? Have a go at Quality Street chocolate cupcakes or my Chocolate brazil nut cookies, they’re both real crowd pleasers.
On the look out for Christmas crafting ideas? There are some amazing sellers on Etsy that offer a range of craft kits this time of year. Something fun for everyone to do in the holidays.