Good evening my lovelies, so it's blogmas day 19 and there are only 6 sleeps to go. I have a nice festive post for you all today not a beauty one but don't worry I have a beauty one lined up for you all tomorrow which I hope you will all love. I personally love Christmas I'm just like a little kid so I just wanted to share with you all what I've been up to today getting ready for Christmas as let me tell you I have been super busy but I love it as I just feel all festive and warm inside.
This year me and my Mum are staying at my Gran and Granddads this Christmas so I have been helping them both get ready for Christmas. My Granddad brought the tree and we decorated it on Monday. At home me and my Mum go for a gold and red colour scheme so it's nice to have a change this year. I'm not really sure if there is a colour scheme going on it just looks like a load of festive colours but I still think it looks really cute. At home we put the tree in our living room but every year my Gran and Granddad put theirs in their conservatory. I think I prefer it in the sitting room as thats where we open our presents and I think it looks more festive there. Although saying that I love it in the conservatory as at night when it's all lit up it lights up the whole conservatory so it looks as if theres about five Christmas trees in there and it just looks magical. I have spent the majority of today and yesterday wrapping presents and I still have a few more to do. On Thursday I helped my Gran wrap all of her presents which seemed to take forever as she buys so many nice presents for her massive family, she goes to so much trouble bless her. Today I did my wrapping and I think I might help Mum with hers later on tonight. We're having a big family pre-Christmas get together tomorrow so we've been getting all the presents wrapped ready for tomorrow. When wrapping up presents I like to have my Christmas cd playing in the background and light a candle, I'm currently using my Colony one in Noel which is very festive. I love wrapping presents so, so much it's my favourite thing to do before Christmas, it might actually be my favourite part of Christmas.
We have also decorated the house today. We put greenery and holy around all of the pictures which i think just looks really festive. We have also hung decorations from the windows. My Granddad attached some nails to a piece of wood that sits above the windows so you can easily hang the decorations. I love all these homily touches, me and my Mum do this every year so it's nice to carry on the tradition.
Back to my festive baking I made some mince pies today. Now I personally don't like mince pies but my family love them and I actually quite enjoy making them. I love the smell of them baking but I just don't like dried fruits such as raisins and currents and I won't lie but the suet has always put me off them. Although the smell of them baking is just Christmas summed up for me. Seeing as I think my previous baking blog posts have gone down well I thought I would share with you all the recipe that I used if you fancy giving them a go:
Ingredients (makes 20)
Pastry:
350g plain flour
225g butter (cubed)
100g icing sugar
Grated zest of a small orange
1 tbsp double cream
pinch of salt
Filling:
300g mincemeat
50g of a cooking apple finely grated
1 tbsp brandy
1 egg white
Caster sugar for dusting
Method
1) Mix the flour, butter and a pinch of salt in a food processor to form breadcrumbs. You could do this by hand but if your pushed for time then a food processor is quicker
2) Add the icing sugar, orange zest and cream, and then mix until the pastry forms a ball
3) Chill for an hour in the fridge. I made the pastry the night before for maximum chilling time but an hour should do the trick if you don't have much time.
4) Grate about 50g of a cooking apple into a bowl- it doesn't need to be accurate just use as much as you want I think I used about half an apple which isn't that much once you've removed the skin.
6) Stir the apple into the mincemeat and then add the brandy
7) Weigh the pastry, you want two thirds for the cases and then the final third for the stars
8) Roll out the two thirds section of the pastry and use a round cutter to make the bases. We were able to make 20 - although theres now 19 in the picture after my Gran finished testing them.
9) Grease the muffin tin with butter before placing the pastry discs into the tray and moulding to form pie cases.
10) Fill the pastry cases so they are 3/4 full and then chill in the fridge for half an hour
11) Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/ 180°C fan/ gas mark 6
12) Roll out the smaller section of pastry and use a star cutter to cut out the stars out which will form the tops of the pies.
13) Brush the stars with the egg white and then sprinkle a small amount of caster sugar over the stars. Once in the oven the stars will then crisp up and go golden brown
14) Chill the stars and whilst they are chilling you can start baking the bases for 20 minutes. 8-10 minutes before the end of the bake add the stars into the oven which will only need 8-10 minutes until they appear golden brown
15) Remove the pies from the oven and leave them in their tins for about 5 minutes before removing them and allowing them to cool
You could then serve the mince pies with brandy butter and cream, I think that's how my family usually eat them.
Like I said we're having a family get together tomorrow so the house currently smells amazing as my Grans been busy cooking she's roasted a ham and a piece of beef. She's also making a quiche tomorrow. We're just about to start making puddings for tomorrow which I'm dead excited about. I love seeing the family at Christmas, as we have quite a large family it's difficult to get us all in the same place at the same time so I can't wait for tomorrow.
I hope you enjoyed reading this festive blog post. I haven't really blogged about what I'm doing in my day before so let me know if you would like to read more posts like this one. Also, let me know in the comments what Christmassy things you have been getting up to recently. Thank you for reading my lovelies.
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