Ren Behan - Author Wild Honey and Rye

Food Writer

Gifts

10 Festive Makes and Bakes

From Christmas gifts for teachers and local friends, to canapés and cocktails for all those parties, I’ve pulled together a cracker of a round-up of my absolute favourite makes and bakes for the festive season. So grab a glass of mulled wine, blast out those cheesy Christmas tunes and plan your shopping list!

Gifts

1. CHRISTMAS SPICED CRANBERRY & PLUM CHUTNEY

Spiced Cranberry and Plum Chutney

It only takes twenty minutes to make this delicious chutney, and it goes with a whole host of Christmas goodies like your Christmas day roast, cold cuts or how about a baked Camembert? Jar it up, add a pretty label and you’ll have another present ticked off your list. This recipe makes two jars, so one to give and one to keep – perfect!

Grab the recipe

2. CREAMY SEA SALTED FUDGE

Sea Salted Christmas Fudge

Another quick and easy option for gifting is a batch of indulgent creamy fudge, packaged up in smart boxes or popped into cellophane bags tied with pretty ribbon. My version is flavoured with vanilla and sea salt, which always transports me right back to British seaside holidays. Your friends and family will delighted when you hand them a little bag of these sweet treats.

This recipe is featured on JamieOliver.com.

Grab the recipe

Canapes

3. COD, CHORIZO AND PEA PUREE BITES

cod, chorizo and pea puree bites

These elegant canapés should impress your party guests this season. Combining fluffy white chunks of cod with a feisty slice of chorizo on a bed of buttery pea puree, this is a one-bite experience not to be missed!

Grab the recipe

4. MAKE AHEAD LEEK & POPPY SEED SAUSAGE ROLLS

Sausage Rolls

Once you make your own sausage rolls, there really is no going back! Gorgeous flaky pastry and top notch quality sausage meat makes for an exceedingly crowd-pleasing party canapé. Crucially, you can get them ready in advance and just bake as needed, so it’ll save you faffing about in the kitchen when you could be enjoying yourself!

Grab the recipe

Christmas Baking

5. RICE KRISPIE HOUSE

Rice Krispie House

This cute little rice krispie house is a great project for little people (and big people) and it’s a great alternative when you feel like making something, but don’t quite have the energy for full-on baking. Let’s face it, we’re all exhausted at this time of year!

Grab the recipe

6. MINCE PIE CUPCAKES

Mince Pie Cupcakes

If you’re looking for a festive twist on a batch of Christmas cupcakes, then you should check out my Mince Pie Cupcakes – made with a vanilla sponge, mincemeat and a luxurious brandy butter icing. You can decorate them with sprinkles, coloured sugar or some retro-picks.

7. WHITE CHOCOLATE MALTESER CAKE

Malteser-Cake-1-of-1-2

Or how about this simple but spectacular White Chocolate Malteser Cake? It makes a wonderful centrepiece for a party spread, and is a great swap-in for a fruit-cake if your family aren’t fans.

Find both recipes here

Cocktails

8. APEROL SPRITZ

Aperol Spritz

Let’s kick off with a round of Aperol Spritz cocktails – I think the jewel-bright orange colour of these 19050’s inspired drinks are perfect for the holiday season!

Grab the recipe

9. GIN & RHUBARB FIZZ

New Year's Eve Cocktails

What better way to get your New Year’s Eve party started than welcoming your guests with a glass of Gin & Rhubarb Fizz. It’s fruity, classy and fun – just like all the perfect party hosts should be!

Grab the recipe

10. POMEGRANATE & VANILLA VODKA

I love how achievable this recipe is! You could make this and give it as a gift, but you could quite easily keep it to share at parties this Christmas. It’s also brilliant for defrosting the grown ups when they’ve got back in from all those frosty family walks or trips around the park with the kids test-driving their new bikes and scooters!

Pomegranate Vodka

Grab the recipe

Hope some of these recipes appeal to you! Let me know if you make any by tagging them with #renbehanfood

I’ll be back soon to share a couple of festive recipes from my new You Tube channel.

Giveaway: Hotel Chocolat – The Christmas Wreath (RRP £40)

All I want for Christmas (literally) is this giant box of Christmas chocolates by Hotel Chocolat – called The Christmas Wreath. Hotel Chocolat tell me that this is,

A show-stopping festive centrepiece to gather round and share this Christmas. Filled with 40 delicious Christmas truffles, a chunky cookie wreath and two large chocolate snowflakes, one cast in gorgeous salted caramel and the other in luscious Peru Pichanaki 75% Milk.

The Christmas Wreath
Image : Hotel Chocolat

The truffles include simple milk truffles, blackcurrant bombes, white champagne truffles, gin truffles, Christmas pudding truffles, a salted caramel snowflake, Christmas gianduja and more. I would actually be in chocolate heaven.

If you’d like to win this selection box, simply follow the instructions in the entry box below and then keep everything crossed!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This prize will be posted out to one lucky reader in the UK in time for Christmas by the lovely folks at Hotel Chocolat.

For more chocolate-inspired gifts, take a look at the full range here.

With many thanks to Hotel Chocolat for providing the prize in this giveaway.

Homemade Mother’s Day Chocolates – Puddles and Lollipops (that Dads can help with!)

 Chocolate Lollipops

I had an idea, to make some homemade Mother’s Day chocolates, which seemed much less messy in my head (although the photos conveniently don’t show the trail of chocolate all over the worktops) to make some chocolate blobs and decorate them. They seemed to work and my three year old enjoyed adding sprinkles and marshmallows, almost as much as she enjoyed licking her fingers and eating the bits as we went along. Still, now we have two boxes of lovely homemade chocolate puddles and lollipops that they children can give to my mummy and to my mother-in-law on Sunday. I got the cook’s treat of eating as I went along, too… 

Chocolate Lollipops

These really are as straightforward as melting some good quality chocolate in a bowl over a gently simmering heatproof bowl of water. Make sure the water doesn’t touch the bowl. I used a pyrex glass bowl and added 200g milk chocolate buttons along with 100g Fairtrade dark chocolate.  You don’t need to go to the bother of tempering, since the chocolate blobs will be covered with sprinkles and sweets so a glossy finish isn’t particularly important. The chocolate barely needs any heat at all to melt, so make sure the water isn’t boiling too rapidly and resist the temptation of stirring it too much.

Once your chocolate has melted, leave it to cool for a little bit. Take a flat surface or a board and lay some clingfilm or another thin board on top. The whole thing will need to fit in your fridge, so make some space in there too.

You can either pour the melted chocolate into a piping bag or just use a teaspoon and carefully pour little blobs, or puddles of chocolate onto the clingfilm or board. It will be quite runny. If you are using a piping bag, just snip a little hole. I tried both piping bag and then pouring the chocolate from a spoon on a second batch and got similar results. The spoon is probably a little less messy.

Chocolate Lollipops

Once you have some blobs or puddles on a flat surface, lay a lollipop stick onto each one. I found some at Lakeland, if you can’t find any sticks you can just make chocolate coins or puddles.

Then sprinkle over some edible treats – we used colourful sprinkles and some mini marshmallows and some edible pearl glitter. You can sprinkle over toffee pieces, chopped up biscuits, bits of fruit and nuts, freeze-dried fruit, whatever you fancy.

Then carefully place the whole board into the fridge to set for around twenty minutes. Once set properly, your lollopops should lift off easily. If you’ve used clingfilm, you can just peel them off.

Chocolate Lollipops

Pop them in a box lined with some tissue paper and then keep them in the fridge if you can until you are ready to give them to your mummy on Mother’s Day!

Chocolate Lollipops

Here are some other simple ideas you can make at home –

Mother’s Day Breakfast/Brunch

Swiss Scrambled Eggs

Asparagus & Mozarella Toasts

Cakes & Bakes

Banana Cinnamon Blondies

Easy Rhubarb Traybake

Raspberry Ripple and Basil Cupcakes

Caramel & Cocoa Cupcakes

Chocolate Lollipops

Have you made any edible gifts for Mother’s Day? Let me know in the comment box below and I’ll pop over and take a look.

 

Feature: Handpicked Gift Ideas Via Inkling

Finding the perfect gift can be tricky, particularly when much of what we visibly see in the shops is over-commercialised. Cue a new company called Inking, who have come up of the clever idea of handpicking a selection of gifts from all over the Internet. Some of the ideas are tested favourites, whilst others are bespoke picks. You can find pamper days, gift experiences, luxury items and plenty of other gift inspiration ideas. I was invited to be a Guest Editor recently for some of the Food & Drink items on the new site and it’s certainly nice to see some more unusual ideas for gifts all in one place. On the home page, there is a simple box which says ‘I’m looking for a gift for…’ followed by ‘He/She is…’ and then ‘A Student/Young Adult/A Senior…’ etc which helps you find the perfect gift in different price ranges to suit your gift profile and budget.

For example, I spotted this lovely cook book holder by Laura Ashley

Cook Book Holder

Photo Credit: Laura Ashley

And this gorgeous Pip Studio cake stand (definitely on my wish list!)

PiP Studio Shabby Cake Stand, 30.5cm

Photo Credit: John Lewis

Whilst another Editor spotted these pretty and colourful French Macarons via Not on the High Street

French-Macarons

Photo Credit: Not on the High Street

It’s a simple concept, but I hope it takes off as it certainly helps to have suggestions from lots of different places around the web. You can also save ideas for a later date or click ‘Buy Gift’ which then takes you directly to the site the gift was originally found on.

Pop over and see if you can find some unusual, handpicked gift ideas for Mother’s Day or any occassion ahead or follow @An_Inkling for gift ideas by tweet.

Disclosure: Guest Editing at Inkling is an unpaid role although there is a small commission for any click through on my Editorial picks. I have not received any remuneration for writing this post.

Keep or Give: Christmas Spiced Cranberry and Plum Chutney

It’s beginning to smell a lot like Christmas…and it snowed today! A snowy day calls for staying home, keeping warm and making a big pan of Christmas Spiced Cranberry and Plum Chutney. It is so easy to make (less than twenty minutes and it’s done) and it goes with a whole host of Christmas goodies – your Christmas day roast, cold cuts, a baked Camembert or brie…which is what we’re having tonight with a warm baguette and a glass of red wine. Or, if you are getting ahead and are gift making, you can jar it up, add a pretty label and you’ll have another present ticked off your list. Keep or Give? Luckily this recipe makes two jars!

Spiced Plum Chutney

Spiced Cranberry and Plum Chutney

Print

Christmas Spiced Cranberry and Plum Chutney

Prep

Cook

Total

Ingredients

  • 300g/three cups fresh cranberries
  • 3-4 fresh plums, stones removed, chopped
  • 175g/one cup demerera sugar
  • Grated zest of 2 clementines
  • 2 cinnamon sticks
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger or half a teaspoon freshly grated ginger
  • 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
  • 2-3 tbsp brandy, cherry brandy or port

Instructions

  1. Take a large, wide sauce pan and add your cranberries, plums, demerera sugar, spices, red wine vinegar and brandy or port.
  2. Stir together well, bring to a boil, turn down the heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Stir every now and again and make sure it doesn't stick or burn.
  3. In the meantime, sterilize your jars by putting them through a dishwasher cycle or by washing them in warm soapy water, rinsing well and placing them in an oven at gas mark 4, 350°F, 180°C, for 5 minutes.
  4. Leave to cool slightly and then carefully take out the two whole cinnamon sticks and spoon your chutney into jars.
  5. Cover with waxed discs, seal with the lids and label.

Notes

This makes 2 x jam jars of chutney. Once opened store the chutney in the fridge. The chutney will keep for up to six months.

Spiced Cranberry and Plum Chutney

Tonight, I’m taking part in week 3 of the Booths Cheers Challenge. For the past few weeks, at 7pm, we’ve all been cracking open our bottles and sharing our best tips as well as our wine and beer matches. Today, a bottle of Croft Finest Reserve Port arrived – a little of which went into my chutney, the rest is stashed for Christmas tipples. We also received a very special bottle of Chateau Lagarde Bellevue Saint-Emilion Grand Cru 2009. I’ll be trying this with my baked Camembert and Christmas Spiced Cranberry and Plum Chutney. Follow the #BoothsCheers and join me!

Spiced Cranberry and Plum Chutney

Although the cranberries are not in season in the UK, they are in season in America! The plums and clementines were from my fruit bowl, so I’m linking this post up to the super-seasonal Karen who is hosting December’s Simple and in Season at Lavender and Lovage. I promise you November’s round up very soon!

I’m also linking up to December’s festive One Ingredient Challenge hosted by Nazima at Franglais Kitchen which is ginger – I used ginger spice – hope that counts. You could use half a teaspoon of grated fresh ginger in place of the ground!

Ginger

And one more, also linking up one of my photos to the No Croutons Required Christmas special! Thanks Jac.

With many thanks to Booths Country for hosting the #BoothsCheers challenges and for their 12 Days of Christmas parcels

You could also make as gifts –

Rumtopf of Rum Pot with Seasonal Fruit

Pomegranate and Vanilla Vodka

Polish Spiced Christmas Cookies

Have you had any snow this week?