Yes, I know it’s February, but I decided to take some time off over the festive season to recharge the old batteries. While much of the northern hemisphere has been under a blanket of snow, Nottingham is under it’s usual grey clouds. Temperatures are strangely mild for the season. We had some proper wintery weather, but that has long gone now. Anyway, I thought I really should get around to updating you all on last year’s Christmas hamper. I know the last thing you probably want to think about is Christmas, but maybe the recipes will inspire you to give edible gifts yourself this year. Links to the recipes are in the titles.

Coconut Ice I like to include Coconut Ice each year because it is always very popular, plus it looks so pretty. It is soft and yielding, with a very sweet coconut flavor and if you haven’t tried it before, then you need to remedy that quickly. This recipe is simple to do and takes very little time. There is a more complicated version that involves boiling sugar to ‘soft ball’ stage, but at Christmas time you have enough to do so a quick go to recipe for last minute neighbour gifts is just what you need.

Eggnog Fudge Truffles This one was a new fudge flavour for me. I figured that since Eggnog is largely cream, one of the main components of fudge, that it would work very well. It did. Using ready made is easier, but you can make your own if you prefer. If you are not familiar with eggnog, it is a festive milk, egg and rum drink with medieval origins. With some freshly grated nutmeg on top, the fudge really carried over the flavours of eggnog, but without the punch of the alcohol. Now, you may be wondering why I did truffles? Well, while the test batch turned out great, I had a bit of a slip up when I made the main batch and put too much butter in. Needless to say, it didn’t set firm enough, so rather than throw it all away, I made them into truffles.

Christmas Wreath Iced Gingerbread CookiesI used my favourite gingerbread cut-out cookie recipe for this but had to do a bit of jiggery-pokery to get the wreath shape. First I used a 4″circle cutter, then a small 1″ cutter to cut the middle out, so I was left with a doughnut shape. I then took a small bow shaped cutter, and cut out a bow. I then used the same cutter to cut out a section of my doughnut shape, then placed in the bow I had cut out earlier, which gave the hanging bow effect. Placed together on a baking tray, they join together while baking like some kind of franken-cookie. The bows were iced first, then outlined. The leaves were then done individually with a small leaf tip nozzle. The addition of a few red sugar balls and it was done. I was very proud of how these turned out.

Candy Cane Chocolate Bark Chocolate bark is another edible gift that can be very impressive looking, yet easy to do and is very customisable. For this one, I melted an embarrassingly large amount of white chocolate, and then drizzled over some melted red candy melts that I had flavoured with peppermint. Using a cocktail stick, I feathered the red through the white, then finished it off with some small candy cane shaped sugar sprinkles. The only downside to this is you may have to make double what you actually need as it is just too moreish.

Gift Box Cake Pops

So, unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of these before they went out, because time got away from me and I was finishing these off the night before posting and I prefer to take pictures in daylight. Essentially, it was the basic cake pop recipe, with the pops shaped into squares. These were coated in white candy melts, then a red ‘ribbon’ of royal icing was piped around it and on top to look like a bow.

Cinnamon Shortbread

Using a traditional Scottish shortbread recipe, I made it more festive by adding cinnamon to the dough. I kept the cookies small, as they had to travel and smaller shapes are less likely to break, but if you are not posting, you can make them any size or shape you like.