My Mum's Christmas Cake

I have made several Christmas cakes but still didn’t have a favourite recipe so I searched for a new one, with ‘easy’ as one of the keywords. I used one called 'Simmer-and-Stir Christmas Cake' and it is now the one I will use in future years (although next year I will remember to buy some nuts!).

I made a round cake and a very small taster cake in a loaf tin with the spare mixture, so I already knew it was going to be a good one. I made my own almond marzipan (and chocolate coated marzipan sweets with the spare) and topped it with a soft royal icing as I don’t like the stuff that breaks teeth! Then, knowing the limits of my artistic icing skills, I just decorated it with 4 chocolate stars and a ribbon.

Gingerbread House and Biscuits

It's become a tradition in my house to make a gingerbread house just before Christmas every year, and smother it in icing, chocolate and sweets.

This year we made lots of mixture and made an extra 60 star biscuits too! I can't claim to have made this house unfortunately - my mum made the mixture and my little sisters decorated it. However I did help, and definitely helped eat it...

 Look out for a guest post from my mum with her home-made Christmas cake soon!

Christmas Cupcakes

For the last few Christmases I have succeeded in stressing myself out making chocolate logs (the weighing scales didn't work, the sponge splits when I rolls it, the chocolate doesn't melt...) so I decided this year I would make stress-free cupcakes!

I assembled Christmas-themed cupcake cases, giant chocolate stars, silver balls and holly. I made several small cupcake mixes using a standard recipe for each (2oz butter, 2oz sugar, 1 egg, 2oz flour and 1 tsp baking powder) and added different flavours.