Mushroom and Garlic Stuffed Picnic Loaf

I found it very difficult to get a jar of wild mushrooms in oil, in Gravesend, so I asked Mum and Dad if they could look in Sevenoaks. I thought it was more of a wild mushroom in a jar kind of place!! It turns out that it is! They very kindly bought me a jar in a delicatessen. The only problem was that one jar cost £7.95!!!!!
Yesterday, my brother and his family came over, so I decided to make this loaf for them.
I would say that I had high hopes for it, but when you are using a jar of mushrooms that costs £7.95 to start with, the pressure is on!!
Thankfully the loaf was fairly straight forward, and turned out ok. It really would have been a disaster, had it gone wrong.
It was very tasty, but I don't think it was £7.95 kind of tasty! I would expect a loaf that costs that much to be amazing, and this was just good. I am sure that it would be possible to use cheaper alternatives, so maybe another time...
Forgetting the price of this loaf, we gave it a score of 8.0
I have now done all my pre Christmas baking (only three more recipes to go), and am looking forward to sitting down with the family to watch The Polar Express. A Christmas Eve tradition of ours.
Happy Christmas Everyone!

Buche de Noel

I have always tried to stick closely to Mary's recipes, after all, that was what the challenge was about. However, for this recipe I had to make quite a big change. I do feel slightly guilty about this. I used Mary's swiss roll recipe,but the icing was out of Nigella's Christmas book! I guess that is called a Marella recipe!
The reason for this detour was because I couldn't get hold of any unsweetened chestnut puree for the filling. I wasn't actually that disappointed about this as I didn't think the kids would really like it. Also the buche de noel recipe had a topping of whipped cream, and I really wanted to serve this as a cake rather than a pudding. I made it on Sunday afternoon, before our guests came round.
It didn't last long, in fact the whole thing went in the evening!  It was delicious and  scored it 8.5

Rich Cheesy Biscuits

On Sunday evening, we had an open house for the neighbours, and did some carol singing around the piano. Of course there was food on offer, so a great opportunity to tick off a couple more bakes!
These rich cheesy biscuits were easy to make, and I decided that star shapes would be more festive than circles.
I thought I had some sesame seeds for the top, but it turned out that it was a bag of linseed, and I didn't think that would be any good. On some of the biscuits I put a little bit of grated cheese, which worked well. 
Although there were 30 biscuits, they did not last long, and the kids especially seemed to enjoy them. We scored them 8.0

Gingerbread House

Last week, I watched the Christmas Bake off, and saw Mary and Paul make this gingerbread house. Although the recipe is not in the book, it was in last weeks Radio Times and I felt that it just had to be attempted. The kids were also very keen, so how could I refuse, having made so many other things?
I made the gingerbread on Friday night - with the help of Tom, who provided moral support! It was a huge amount of gingerbread, and very difficult to knead, but eventually I managed to roll it out and cut it into the correct shapes (thanks to the template download).
The windows were made by crushing boiled sweets. Unfortunately I do not own a pestle and mortar, so Ad used my rolling pin to crush them. Sadly my rolling pin (which is wooden) is no longer smooth, but has some large dents in! I ended up borrowing a neighbour's rolling pin, which did the job beautifully! Let's hope Santa brings me a new one for Christmas!!!
We put the whole thing together on Saturday, listening to Michael Buble and generally feeling very festive. Ellie and Ben did a brilliant job of cementing the chocolate buttons onto the roof with royal icing.
We were all really pleased with the finished house, and thoroughly enjoyed making it. It lasted a couple of days, and was admired by several visitors before we gave in, and tucked into it. It was delicious!! We decided that it scored 10!!!!!! Finally a recipe that was a lot of effort, but worth every bit of it. Just a shame its not acutally in the Baking Bible!

Baked Alaska

I remember having Baked Alaska as a child. I do not remember having it since, so it is probably considered a 70s or 80s type of pudding.
The family considered that it was probably best left in the past!
Although there is not much to dislike about this pudding - sponge, strawberries, ice cream and meringue, somehow when it is altogether it doesn't quite go. Well that was what we thought. We only gave it 6.5.

Ginger Cream Roll

Mary says that although this is a no cook pudding, she included it because it was so easy and impressive looking.
I think Ben summed it up when he saw me making it, by saying "that's not baking, it's constructing"!
All it involved was dipping ginger biscuits in brandy and sandwiching with cream and leaving overnight in the fridge before covering with even more cream!
It's true that it was easy, and the stripes looked quite good, but that was where it ended. This pudding was an epic fail, and we only scored it 4.0! Far to creamy and sickly - sorry Mary!

Fast Mincemeat Cake

I decided to make this cake as our official Christmas cake - yes, we will have to cut into him on Christmas Day! Ahhh
I read that this cake does not have to be made in advance, or fed with brandy, so I left it until this week to make. What I didn't read was the bit where it says cover the cake with almond paste about a week before icing. Oh well, with time running out, I left mine only two days before icing. Also, it is supposed to be covered with royal icing, but I fancied doing something a bit more fun.
The recipe itself was great, and not lots of messing about. It uses a jar of luxury mincemeat, therefore there is not lots of fruit to be chopped etc. Everything was mixed together and poured into the tin. It baked for just under two hours. I am really hoping it tastes nice, because it was easy to make. I will let you know after Christmas.
I now only have 8 recipes left to do, so it looks like I am going to make it before the new year! Wow!