12 Days of Christmas - Alison Stuart

It's Day Eight here at:

The 12 Days of Christmas

Romance and Food

Blogging Extravaganza! 

I have another wonderful author and another wonderful recipe for you today! Alison Stuart is an award winning published author of historical novels with romance...and the odd ghost...and a bit of time travel. If you're a fan of Downton Abbey, you'll love her latest release, Gather The Bones. As befits a historical author, today Alison has delved into the family vaults to bring us an absolutely delicious looking family recipe!

Aunty Hetty's Famous Mince Pies
by Alison Stuart

Every family has a legendary cook and in my mother’s family that person was “Aunty Hetty”  (Or Aunty Etty as I knew her) – my great aunt.

Auntie Hetty was my grandfather’s eldest sister.  Typical of life in the north of England, especially in large families, where they were used to living in confined accommodation,  when she married she and her husband, Horace, moved into the family home in Salterforth with her parents.  They were allocated the front bedroom.  My greatgrandparents had the back bedroom and Auntie Eva, who never married, a  small front bedroom,  whilst the attic housed two double beds and the bachelor brothers slept there. 

Eva always did the ironing and the two girls were the ones who did the laundry.  They all worked in the local cotton weaving mill, where Horace was an ‘overseer’.  He checked the cloth for any faults and marked the fabric accordingly. Hetty was resigned to the fact that there were no children. In her late 40s, she thought it was the change of life, not suspecting she was pregnant.  She was always on the plump side, so her pregnancy didn’t show and apparently she had no other symptoms, like morning sickness.  She gave birth to a daughter.

Typical of the family hierarchy, Great Granny was head cook and Hetty learned all her skills from her mother. There was no cook books, the recipes were just passed down by word of mouth.  Great Granny never used scales to measure ingredients so her recipes have come down with measurements such as a “tea cup” and a “dessert spoon”.

Hetty inherited her mother’s caring and loving personality  and was adored by nephews and nieces .

As a child I had met Aunty Etty but she was indistinguishable from the rest of the “prickly aunts”, of which my mother seemed to have many.  In the early 80s, at the age of 21, I made my first big overseas trip by myself and in a chilly December I went to stay with my mother’s brother in Lytham St-Annes.  My mother’s family are a close knit bunch even now and even then  it was quite usual for several generations to share the small terrace houses that still line the streets of the old mill towns.

By that time Aunty Etty was living in Morecambe with her daughter and her family. As the slightly exotic Australian member of the family, we went up to take tea with her.  A large afternoon tea was produced, complete with a plate of the famous “mince pies”.

Aunty Etty cocked her head and looked me up and down.

“Well, our Alison,” she said. “How old are thee?”

“Twenty one, Aunty Etty.”

“Twenty one and tha’art not married?” She looked appalled.

“Err…no.”

“What’s wrong with thee. Aren’t there any nice boys in Orstralia?”

To end this embarrassing conversation, I took a mince pie and bit into it. The sweet pastry melted in my mouth. At last a genuine Aunty Etty mince pie. I told her that her recipe was used faithfully every Christmas and all thoughts about my failure in the marriage stakes were forgotten. She plumped up like a hen and we discussed baking.

Aunty Etty’s mince pie recipe is all about the pastry. You can choose whatever fruit mince you wish.  This year, for the first time I’ve made my own fruit mince. I hope it tastes OK – I took the lid off the jar and my eyes watered from the brandy fumes.

Over the years I have made a small adaptation of my own to her recipe so what follows is my take on that wonderful old lady’s recipe. Enjoy J

AUNTY HETTY’S MINCE PIES

250g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

125g sugar

125g butter

I large (or up 2 small) beaten eggs

1/4tsp mixed spice

1 tsp grated lemon rind

Sieve flour and add sugar.

Rub in butter until mixture resembles breadcrumbs

Make into dough with egg (my mother says the secret is making the mixture with just one egg and it needs to be really well worked in)

Turn on to floured board and proceed as for normal pastry.

(A mince pie is one that has a covered top/ a mince tart generally just has a bit of decorative pastry on the top)

Alison’s latest release is GATHER THE BONES, a “Downton Abbeyesque” ghost story.  For more information visit Alison at www.alisonstuart.com.

And another reminder from me about Random Acts of Kindness. The latest hint is one that is very important at this time of year -- car kindness. We're all in a rush and none of us wants to be stuck in traffic. 

This weekend, decide to be the nicest driver you can be: patient and polite. 

And you can also send Random Acts a donation and wear a smile all day.

12 Days of Christmas - Louise Reynolds

It's my merry pleasure to welcome you to day Day Seven of: 

The 12 Days of Christmas

Romance and Food

Blogging Extravaganza! 

My wonderful guest today is Louise Reynolds, who is not only an amazing writer (her first book, Her Italian Aristocrat is out now with Destiny Romance and is a fantastic summer read) but a very lovely friend of mine. 

Louise and her family are going out for their Christmas feast this year. I have to say that my family have done that in the past, especially when we'd relocated and didn't have a lot of family and friends around -- going out to a restaurant seemed more cheery than sitting by ourselves. And it was! I have some very fond memories of Christmases spent in restaurants. And one of the best bits? No dishes to be done when you finish!  

A Different Christmas Dinner

by Louise Reynolds

For the first time, this Christmas we’re having Christmas dinner at a restaurant. I would be feeling really bad about this but as we’re going to Sydney and taking my mother, a restaurant meal is the only possible choice.

But it’s made me think of the Christmases of my childhood. My family circle has dwindled for a number of reasons and of late, come Christmas time, I find myself filling the empty spaces with the production of elaborate meals garnered from the latest cookbooks and magazines.

It wasn’t always like this.

My mother didn’t spend days flicking through food-porn to find the very latest in fashionable food to put before her family and guests. Early in December, a turkey and ham were ordered and a pudding and cake were made. On Christmas morning a kitchen table press-gang peeled mountains of potatoes, pumpkin, sweet potato and parsnip. Giblet stock and sage, onion and bacon stuffing were prepared. The ham had been ceremoniously cut days before, my mother using a lethal carving knife with the precision of a surgeon, peeling back the burnished flap of skin, assessing the colour and thickness of the layer of fat with the eye of a connoisseur and then taking the first slice. The ham was invariably pronounced either a disaster or the best ever.

The seriously alcoholic brandy sauce was also eagerly anticipated. Not for the faint hearted, this concoction of cream, brandy and golden syrup was so utterly delicious that I have been known to request ‘just a bowl of sauce, please’.

Buy links here!

My mother laboured over a meal that, if not set in stone, left very little room for negotiation. Not by a single oyster, sweet potato or glacé fruit did her children allow the meal to deviate from the way it was every year. The plum pudding was always turned onto the royal blue and gold Houses of Parliament serving plate and the silver dish that now sits on my dining table always held nuts ready to be cracked. Food, the notion of plenty, was the table decoration, with cut glass bowls of chocolates, nuts in the shell, cherries and glace fruit placed down the centre of the table.

But what I’ll be missing most is the fun. There won’t be any of that gorgeous silliness involved in our Christmas lunch in a 5 star hotel overlooking Sydney Harbour. No one will wear a pair of hinged cherries as earrings. I doubt that we’ll sport cheap paper crowns that slip tipsily to the side as the afternoon wears on. There may be bonbons but they’ll be civilised affairs. And everyone will be wearing shoes. No one will walk barefoot through a tangle of discarded wrapping paper on the living room floor until one of us inevitably steps on an evilly sharp little piece of plastic.       

But it will be Christmas. We’ll be with the people we love. And that’s enough.Merry Christmas, Emmie, and to all your readers. May the year ahead be filled with blessings of every kind.

Thank you, Louise! And  here's my usual reminder about Random Acts. As part of TDoCFaRBE I'm encouraging you all to undertake a Random Act of Kindness throughout the festive season. 

My tea-drinking peccadilloes are well-documented on the internet. The latest hint from Random Acts is written for coffee lovers, but it applies to tea lovers too! Why not spot someone their daily cuppa (whether camomile or caffeine!) and make their morning? Or you can simply send Random Acts a donation and wear a smile all day.

12 Days of Christmas - Sarah Mayberry

Welcome to day six of:

The 12 Days of Christmas

Food and Romance

Blogging Extravaganza! 

Halfway through! Is your Christmas shopping all done?? No, mine either. But on to happier topics...

My guest today is the absolutely awesome author and (I'm very proud to say) my SuperRomance stablemate, Sarah Mayberry! Sarah's heartwarming (and quite spicy) romances are the stuff of legend and like so many of my wonderful Extravaganza guests, her books are well-represented on my shelves. Sarah has not only brought us a wonderful tale about a family heirloom Christmas pudding, she's even provided the recipe! With all this recipe goodness we're serving up for TDoCFaRBE, there's no excuse not to be straight into the Christmas baking this year...

The Legend  of Nana's Christmas Pudding
by Sarah Mayberry

Before I start waxing poetic about my Nan's pudd, a big thanks to Emmie for inviting me to blog about something so close to my heart (and stomach). With Christmas just days away, I am about to launch into the marathon that is my Day of Pudding Boiling (you'll see why it's a marathon in a moment) so this topic is top of my mind right now.

The legend of my grandmother's Christmas pudding is a bit like Emmie's fruit cake story in that until they've eaten some of my Nan's pudd, many people don't realise they even like plum pudding. In fact, some people might even consider themselves avowed plum pudding haters (poor, deprived fools!). Usually this is because they hate sultanas or currants or some other variety of dried fruit. I must admit, if I was held at gunpoint  with bright lights trained on me, I might also confess to not being the world's greatest sultana lover, too. But all such considerations go out the window when faced with a bowl full of Nan's goodness.  There's something about the boiling process or perhaps it's the sheer simplicity of this recipe that results in a really lovely, rich pudding that isn't overly dried-fruity, even though it's chockas with the stuff. 

Put simply (and, of course, completely objectively) it is The Best Thing Eva. There's no fancy stuff in this recipe - no suet, or glace anything, or nuts or anything vaguely spicy. It's just dried fruit, brandy, eggs, butter, flour and golden syrup. And when it's been boiled for seven hours (six when you make it, one on the day of serving) it's moist and delicious and well worth the "I'm so full I'm going to be sick" feeling that is the inevitable end result of Christmas feasting for so many of us. 

I have no idea where this recipe comes from, but for as long back as I can remember, Christmas day at my maternal grandmother's house was always capped off by Nan unwrapping the pudding, drowning it in brandy sauce and handing it out to a table full of expectant relatives. Usually the pudding had been hanging in her pantry for a few months, maturing to perfection. Even as a child I knew to savor it, because unlike a traditional roast dinner, I knew I was only getting this pudding once a year. Needless to say, there was always  a queue for seconds, and the huge saucepan of brandy sauce never went the distance no matter how much Nan made. 

At a certain point Nan got too old to go through all the fuss of pudding making, so she passed the baton onto my sister, both my mother and my aunt having declared themselves not interested enough in cooking to master the art of the pudding. Once I saw that my sister could replicate my Nan's success, I got in on the act, too, and introduced my husband's family to the joy's of Nan's pudding. Now, every year my sister and I reserve a day to make our pudding. For that day, we are tied to the kitchen, watching our boiling pudding, adding water to the pot, generally fussing around this precious thing until its six hours in the hot seat are up. 

Unlike Nan, I have never tried to make my pudding early and leave it hanging for months to deepen the flavors, or whatever that's about. My sister lost a whole pudding to mold one year, and we both agreed it was too painful a process to risk that kind of attrition. So now we boil our puddings a week or two before Christmas and store them in the fridge. A little less romantic than Nan's way of doing things, I know, but very practical. We have also freelanced from Nan's recipe a little by increasing the amount of brandy we use to soak the fruit. Nan's recipe included only a few tablespoons of the good stuff. My sister and I both decided this was barely enough to dampen the fruit! So we glug a decent amount of brandy over the fruit so that it's got plenty of liquid to soak up and rehydrate with. The recipe below has been adjusted to allow for our heavy-handedness, so feel free to tweak to suit your own tastes. 

So, without further ado, here is Nan's recipe:

Nan Wade's Christmas Pudding

250g currants                           5 eggs

250g raisins                            1 tlbsp golden syrup

250g sultanas                          1 tsp carb soda

125g dates                                250 ml brandy

250g brown sugar                60cm x 60cm unbleached calico, available from most fabric retailers                                     

375g sifted plain flour              kitchen string

250g butter

Cut up raisins and dates so that all pieces are of an even size, about  the size of a sultana.

Mix all the dried fruits together.

• Pour brandy over fruit, mix well and let soak at least overnight. ( sometimes I let it sit 3 or 4 days as I build up to the big 6 hour boiling day)
• Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition.
• Add the soaked fruit & golden syrup , mix well.
• Add the flour and carb soda. Fold dry ingredients in.
• Boil the pudding cloth.  Sift flour over the surface of the pudding cloth to give the pudding a skin.
• Place ingredients in the centre of the cloth and tie up with kitchen string, looping it tightly around the "neck" of the pudding several times, nice and tight.  Place a saucer on the bottom of a very large stock pot and bring water to the boil. (This stops the pudding from "catching" on the bottom of the pot.) Put the pudding into the rapidly boiling water on top of the saucer, and put the  lid on immediately. The pudding will float, but don't worry about that. I usually use water up to about the string line.  Boil the pudding rapidly for 6 hours.  The water must never go off the boil, so replenish from a boiled kettle if necessary, being careful not to pour water directly over the tied neck of the pudding, as it can get  a bit soggy there if water seeps in. 
• At the end of the cooking time, lift the pudding from the water and store in the fridge until the day of serving. On the day of serving, boil the pudding for a further hour to heat it. To serve, cut the string and peel the cloth away from the pudding. Cut into wedges and serve with brandy sauce and vanilla ice-cream. 

The brandy sauce we make to accompany this is basically a sweetened white sauce with brandy added - milk thickened with cornflour, sweetened with sugar, and the brandy added to taste. 

If you are tempted to give this a try, I promise you you won't be disappointed - it comes out a gorgeous golden-syrupy color and tastes so rich and delicious. I cannot wait till Christmas day now that I've written this all up - yummm! Sadly, I only have the  one picture of my pudding from last year. This year I will take many more so I can show it off with pictures as well as words next time anyone is foolish enough to ask about my Nan's pudding.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I'm sure Sarah won't mind me book-ending her post with a little reminder about Random Acts. As part of TDoCFaRBE I'm encouraging you all to undertake a Random Act of Kindness throughout the festive season. 

The latest hint from Random Acts is a lovely one -- why not give someone the gift of your time and attention and make a visit to your local nursing home or to an elderly neighbour?  

Or you can simply send Random Acts a donation and wear a smile all day.

12 Days of Christmas - Anne Gracie

Isn't the race up to Christmas speeding along? Already we're at Day Five of:

The 12 Days of Christmas
Food and Romance
Blogging Extravaganza! 

I'm so excited about all my TDoCFaRBE guests, but today's guest especially. I'm a proud alumni of Anne Gracie's "How to write romance" class and a bit of a fangirl too. "The Perfect Rake" stands in my eyes as one of the most perfect regency romances ever! Since that fateful class that set me on a journey, I've had the good fortune to get to know Anne a little. I know she's not only an amazing writer, but a lovely person who's very generous with sharing her wisdom and knowledge.

Today Anne's sharing her wisdom and knowledge on a cheat's version of Christmas pudding which sounds absolutely delicious for non-pudding fans (like me!). I'm going to have to give this one a try. (And I'm going to need a new wardrobe of clothes the next size up in order to cook and eat all the delicious recipes I'm seeing in the Extravaganza!)

Christmas food
by Anne Gracie

I’ve always loved Christmas, and generally do the whole traditional thing — seafood starter, followed by the hot roast dinner — roast pork with crackling, and turkey, with crispy roast potatoes, baked pumpkin, green beans and a dish my mother always made which was made up of sliced tomatoes and onions in alternating layers with a layer of fresh breadcrumbs and butter dotted over the top so it forms a toasty crust. Mmmm, simple but so yummy and easy. I sometimes add fresh herbs, but really, it’s very good just plain. And it’s nice cold, too.

And then there’s the pud. I love plum pudding — my grandmother always made the best, and then my brother-in-law took on the making of the family pub, but this year I’m going for a departure — I’ve decided this year I’m having a cold pudding, partly because a few people who’ll be at my Christmas dinner this year actively don’t like traditional plum pud (shocking, I know!) and partly because my friend, fellow author Barbara Hannay, made an ice-cream Xmas pudding last year and it sounded easy and yummy, and I’m all for that at Christmas.

500 grams of Christmas pudding

I kg vanilla ice cream

pinch of allspice

400 ml pure cream

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

100 g butter, chopped

Crumble Christmas pudding into coffee bean size lumps, either by hand or with food processor. Thaw ice cream slightly, then, place in a large bowl and mix in pudding crumbles by hand (latex gloves are recommended as protection against the cold). Spoon mixture into prepared dish lined with plastic wrap. Cover and place in freezer for at least 30 mins, or until firm.

Meanwhile stir cream, sugar, allspice and butter in a heavy based saucepan over medium low heat until sugar has dissolved and mixture comes to a simmer. Reduce heat to low and simmer until a smooth caramel sauce forms.

Turn ice cream pudding out onto a chopping board. Remove plastic wrap and place slices of pudding on serving plates . Spoon warm caramel sauce over.

Sounds delicious, doesn’t it, but I can never follow a recipe exactly and I might play around by adding extra things to the mix. I’m thinking some extra fruit marinated in grand marnier or something similar. And I’ll probably serve it with some fresh fruit as well. And maybe a fresh raspberry sauce instead of the caramel. We’ll see.

And I must confess that this gorgeous photo was taken by another writer friend, Marion Lennox, who made a variation of the ice-cream pudding with fresh mangoes and crunchie bars instead of crumbled pudding. I might have to try that one, too.

Thanks, Anne! Anne's latest book is available right now, and fittingly, it's a lovely Christmas read! 

Don't forget, as part of TDoCFaRBE I'm encouraging you all to undertake a Random Act of Kindness throughout the festive season. Don't miss the very helpful hints Random Acts is providing on all kinds of acts of kindness you can perform -- their latest hint was a bit of selfless shopping, something I'm a big fan of. Why not add an extra little treat to your shopping basket and leave it under one of the giving trees, or in one of the charity bins at your supermarket?  Or you can simply send Random Acts a donation and wear a smile all day.

12 Days of Christmas - L.A. Johannesson

It's Day Four! Welcome to:

The 12 Days of Christmas

Romance and Food

Blogging Extravaganza! 

My guest for today is L. A. Johannesson, author of the fabulous tale, eloves me, eloves me not -- an inside look at the world of online dating. In eloves me, eloves me not, 39 year old singelton, Kayte Wexford dives fingers first into a sea of online dating, instant messaging and email exchanges where she connects with some charming, hilarious, bizarre and downright frightening characters. Just like yesterday's guest, Joan Kilby, L.A. is a Canadian who's adopted Australia as her home. She's got a lovely story about her family Christmas traditions. Take it away, L.A.!

The Sweet Season

by L.A. Johannesson

Christmases past hold some of the happiest memories for me. I can remember bursting with anticipation, waking every morning in the lead up to open that next window on the Advent calendar or breaking the link on the Christmas countdown chain.

It was full of anticipation, preparation and celebration. The season was all about festivities, family, fun and food. Even as a child, I noticed that everyone seemed just that extra bit nicer, more generous, more jovial, just more of all things nice. When questioned, my Mother humoured me with the explanation that people were sweeter at this time of year because they consumed more sugar than normal from eating all those Christmas treats.

Growing up in Canada, I recall the cold and blustery Christmas snowstorms and hoping and praying for a White Christmas. I remember tossing off icy mittens and warming up by a roaring fireplace with spiced hot apple cider in hand. To this day when I smell cinnamon, a fresh mandarin orange or a pine tree, I am instantly transported back to those special yet simple times.

Come early December, my mother would enlist my help with the Christmas baking. Over the course of two or three weekends we would prepare a selection of sweet treats to be enjoyed at holiday parties, given as gifts and left out for Santa. To honour those special times with my Mother in our humble little suburban kitchen, I’m sharing two of our favourite recipes with you.

My personal favourite? Nanaimo Bars (a Canadian tradition) a no-bake, chocolate, butter cream bar on a base of graham cracker crumbs, cocoa and coconut: here’s a video recipe!

http://www.joyofbaking.com/NanaimoBars.html

The Whipped Shortbread was Mom’s top pick. They were no roll, no cut, no muss, no fuss, yet retained all the same taste of buttery goodness of a traditional shortbread. They were light, airy and just melted in your mouth. We would add red or green sugar sprinkles for a more festive touch.

http://foodie.ca/2010/12/14/whipped-shortbread/

Once made, the treats were stored out of sight locked in the freezer. Mom would have to hide the freezer key as us kids had a habit of raiding the stash.

There was one year when my teenage brother just couldn’t take it anymore, He wanted those treats so bad. Not being able to find the coveted freezer key, he actually removed the freezer hinges instead, allowing just enough room to pry open the freezer door, reach in, pinch a few and satiate his craving.

 

Yes, they were THAT good!

However you celebrate the holiday season, I hope you enjoy it. Merry Christmas.  Remember whether you eat these treats or not,  ‘tis the season to be a little sweeter.

Where to buy eloves me, eloves me not.

Don't forget, as part of TDoCFaRBE I'm encouraging you all to undertake a Random Act of Kindness throughout the festive season. Don't miss the very helpful hints Random Acts is providing on all kinds of acts of kindness you can perform. Or you can simply send them a donation and wear a smile all day.

12 Days of Christmas - Joan Kilby

Bonjour! 

I'm so thrilled to welcome you to Day Three of:

The 12 Days of Christmas

Food and Romance

Blogging Extravaganza! 

It's my absolute pleasure to welcome my guest today, Joan Kilby. Joan is renowned for her heart-warming romances and she's one of my fellow fantabulous SuperRomance authors.

What some people might not know is that Joan is an adopted Australian -- she grew up in Canada. She's here today to tell us about some of the differences she's noticed between Canadian and Australian Christmases AND she's giving away an absolutely fabulous recipe for panforte! Thanks Joan!

Christmas Dinner -- Canucks versus Aussies

By Joan Kilby

When I was growing up in Canada, Christmas dinner meant a 25 lb roast turkey, stuffing--or dressing as we called it--mashed potatoes, cooked vegetables, home-made bread rolls, and from the German Mennonite side of the family, bubbat, a raisin-laced, doughy, cakey stuffing that, along with everything else, was drenched in lashings of gravy made from pan drippings. This was followed by homemade pies--pumpkin, apple and plum. Also, Christmas cake, shortbread, mince tarts, Nanaimo bar and butter tarts. Whew!

We Canucks need heavy food at Christmas to create a layer of blubber as protection against the long cold winter in case we get caught in a blizzard and have to live off our fat reserves for a week or two. In Vancouver (where I’m from) you would be more likely to drown from forty days and forty nights of rain but the blubber would still come in handy as a built-in flotation device if you were swept away by the deluge.

Fast forward to present day Australia. I’ve lived here for upwards of twenty years but I will never get used to having Christmas in summer. Every year I think wistfully, This year I’ll make a hot turkey dinner. Then I look at the weather forecast. I’d have to be crazy to swelter in the kitchen all day when it’s 35 C outside! Yes, sometimes it rains on Christmas day in Melbourne but it still doesn’t feel like Canada. Probably what I’m really pining for is my lost childhood but that ain’t coming back. So I have another dip in the pool before I put on the barbecue. After all, it’s Christmas.

I serve cold roast chicken, sliced baked ham and half a dozen different salads. I love the Aussie tradition of seafood at Christmas so barbecued prawns with chilli, ginger and garlic are a favourite starter. Dessert is a fruit platter and my own homemade panforte, the spicy Italian fruit and nut cake. All in all, it’s a lot lighter and healthier than turkey with five starches.

Here is my recipe for panforte which I’ve adapted from several recipes. Classic recipes use fruit peel and glace fruits but I prefer dried fruits. It makes a great Christmas gift, or an energy boost when you’re starving but you’ve still got pages to write before you can call it a day. It’s a lot of work but it’s so worth it.

Joan's latest book is "To Be A Family" and it's out right now in Australia.

Panforte  

400 g whole blanched almonds, toasted and kept hot to help with mixing

200 g macadamias, also toasted and kept hot

200 g raw pistachio nuts (you could also include hazelnuts)

200 g raisins

200 g currants

540 g mixed dried fruit chopped coarsely- figs, pears, apricots, pineapple, craisins - your choice. I like a bit of crystalized ginger for an extra kick

200 g plain flour

20 g cocoa

2 tsp cinnamon  (I use heaped teaspoons of all the spices cuz I like it spicy)

1 tsp white pepper

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground ginger

300 g dark chocolate, chopped

30 ml water

300 g honey

200 g caster sugar

Method:

- preheat oven to 160 C

- line a 20 x 22 x 4 cm pan with baking paper or edible rice paper sheets

- toast nuts, timing them so they’re ready when everything else is ready to be mixed together.

- in a large bowl, mix the nuts, dried fruit, flour, cocoa, spices and chocolate. I mix the flour, cocoa and spices separately first to make sure they’re evenly mixed.

- bring the water, honey and sugar to boil and pour over mix in bowl. This will be thick and dryish. Don't be tempted to add extra liquid.

- Mix well.

- press into the tin, using a sheet of baking paper or oiled fingers to pat it out. Careful, it's hot! Or press down with half a cut lemon which gives a nice zing to the finished cake.

- Bake for 35 minutes until the top is covered in fine blisters.

- when cool slice thinly to serve

YUM!

Don't forget, as part of TDoCFaRBE I'm encouraging you all to undertake a Random Act of Kindness throughout the festive season. During December, Random Acts is very helpfully making suggestions for all kinds of acts of kindness you can perform. Or you can simply send them a donation and wear a smile all day.

12 Days of Christmas - Ebony McKenna

It is my absolute pleasure to welcome my first guest in Day Two of this year's

12 Days of Christmas 

Food and Romance 

Blogging Extravaganza 

Welcome, Ebony McKenna! Ebony is not only an amazing author of fun and fantastical YA novels, she's an awesome critique partner and friend. Ebony is joining TDoCFaRBE with a tale of a family favourite recipe, perfect for those Christmas leftovers...

Ebony McKenna

Turkey Curry For The Win!

by Ebony McKenna

I’m so excited to be part of the fabulous Emmie Dark’s 12 Days of Christmas, where we get to share some of our Christmas traditions with the world.

If you know me from Twitter, Facebook or even real life, you’ll know I love curry pies. But my all time favourite curry is the turkey curry my mother-in-law makes for Christmas.

It’s a properly English curry as well, so it has sultanas in it. On paper it sounds a little bit horrid, doesn’t it? Admit it, even the headline made you squirm. But this really is one of those ‘you can’t know until you’ve tried it’ dishes that is honestly divine.

This is the dish we all look forward to every festive season. The original roast turkey (which is all kinds of awesome) is served for Christmas lunch, but it’s two days later that the extra magic happens. All that delicious left over roast turkey is sliced up and sauced up with the previously mentioned sultanas and not-previously-mentioned celery chunks.

Just the way to use up your leftover turkey!

Over the decades, dozens and dozens of people have tried it and loved it. Another tradition my mother-in-law has is to invite loads and loads of people over for December 27, to help us get through the leftovers. The biggest was 35 guests. She had tables running the length of the dining room and down through the front lounge. Thank heavens for open-plan living. We could all see each other and wave down the length of the table. Then conversation died completely because we were too occupied with the curry.

Because we’re in Melbourne, we never really know what the weather is going to be like. When it’s a superhot summer, the air conditioner is belting, the paper hats are sticking to our clammy scalps and we all end up in the pool later on. If it rains (and we had massive hail storms last year on Christmas Day) it’s even better to eat curry while listening to the rain lashing the roof.

One day, I’ll have to take over the reins and it will be my turn to make the turkey curry. I am going to have to ask her for the recipe because there’s no way I can wing this. I’m going to have to do the work and get it right. The pressure will be on, for sure.

But not yet. This year I still get to enjoy it without any of the stress.

Oh, and another tradition? The husband and I are so thoughtful about helping the family clear the leftovers, we take empty food containers so we can bring some home.

May your Christmas, Hannuka, Festivus and New Year be full of feasting and fabulous traditions.

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Don't forget, as part of TDoCFaRBE I'm encouraging you all to undertake a Random Act of Kindness throughout the festive season. During December, Random Acts is very helpfully making suggestions for all kinds of acts of kindness you can perform. Or you can simply send them a donation and wear a smile all day.