31/12/2024
So, what's been cooking in the Bloss Cooks kitchen over the festive period? Well, I tend to leave the savoury stuff to everyone else and concentrate on the puds myself!
Some of my favourites include stollen - I'm currently onto my 3rd attempt this week due to 2 not-so-great efforts so hopefully third time lucky! Although it's basically just a fancy bread, I find that you have to get the timing just right in terms of the consistency it's at when you finally get it in the oven otherwise it can end up too dense and chewy.
Chocolate logs are a firm favourite here - and they look way more impressive than they really are!! The trick is to whip the bases out of the oven after precisely 8 minutes and roll them straight up in a tea towel sprinkled with sugar. After that its just plonking a cream filling inside and plonking the chocolate icing on the outside - both of which can be shop-bought. Any cracks can be easily covered up and after a bit of fork-action to create the log effect and icing sugar for a wintry snow sprinkle then hey presto!
Frangipane mince pies are also extremely easy and delicious - a twist on the classic version! The pastry is a sweet pastry with egg yolk and icing sugar and the topping is an almond sponge. If you don't have ground almond this can be replaced with just flour and a good dollop of almond flavouring and you won't notice much difference apart from a slightly smoother consistency.
Other "cheat" desserts include gingernut strudel, made with crushed up gingernut biscuits and ready rolled pastry and "winter cobbler", a twist on the usual fruit cobbler using white chocolate melted into the doughballs and white chocolate shavings for the top.
All of these recipes have been made in classes over the years by children aged 2+ (admittedly with some help or hindrance by the grown-ups😜)! Winter cobbler recipe is added in the comments xx
