Belated Christmas and New Year 2015-2016

This is a bit belated, but never mind.  We had sparklers and an Asda Silver Fountain in our back garden for new year:

This was our tree.  A real tree that had to be watered - as usual.  We placed it in our kitchen this year and it was topped with Woody from This is England for a while and then with Kanye West (would that have anything to do with our teenage son?).  We like to choose something topical as the fairy for the top of the tree and both these men were a good idea.  Oh, I can see that the mince pies made an appearance - they must have been just out of the oven when this photo was taken.

We used white lights.  My husband had to go to Homebase to get another set as ours weren't working - they only have to function once a year.  I also like the multi-coloured ones, but I'm really not keen on those blue ones.

A photo of my father carving the Xmas turkey.  We had a lovely lunch at my parents, near Chagford, cooked by my mother.  All the trimmings and plenty of it.  Just lovely.  And no trouble at all!

I made two batches of mince pies - with one I used my own pastry and shop bought mincemeat and the other I used shop-bought pastry and homemade (by someone else) mincemeat.  They were both good - I think this allayed my fears of pastry a little - I just put all the ingredients in the kitchen blender and then refrigerate for half an hour or so before using, and it was easy and fine - but I know from previous attempts that pastry can be tricky.

Although connossieurs thought the homemade pastry was better - there wasn't a huge difference. I always top mince pies with 'Nigella' stars - they are appreciated more than pie lids, use less pastry and are much less fiddly as they can be 'plonked' on the top rather than carefully sealed and shaped.

The whole festive period was spent in Devon.  I enjoyed many other festive treats, but was too greedy to take any photos of them!

Review: Hotel Chocolat Advent Calendar 'Truffles to Share'

This advent calendar was gratefully received courtesy of Hotel Chocolat and it felt really naughty to eat the whole thing by 14 November!  However, I had a review to do, so I had the perfect excuse.    I'm guessing this is aimed at Double Income No Kids Yet couples (can anyone else afford £24 for an advent calendar?) who want to share a high end product. The (rather seductive) gimmick is that there are two chocolates behind each window.   I do have children and they were very excited about it, but they only liked one or two of the truffle flavours.  In fact rather than bickering over who would have the chocolates we were all saying 'No, go on, you have the mulled wine truffle.'

 I loved the Salted Soft Caramel and quite liked the gingerbread truffle, the plain and milk truffles, but the mulled wine flavour was rejected by all of us and only one of us, my 10 year old son, liked the cinnamon praline. All the chocs were the same nipple shape.  It would have been more fun with some variation e.g. Stars, trees, snowmen etc

On the plus side, two chocs per advent window is a great idea.  Right sized chocolates, three quarter sized = a nice mouthful.  

Negatives: high price and dubious flavours. The packaging design was half right: I liked the sparkly icicle and tree pattern but there was an ugly strip of white cardboard down the middle on the hinge of the calendar. 

It would have been nice if the website had listed the truffle flavours contained within this calendar.  There are some very tiny icon symbols to show they contain e.g. alcohol, nuts, milk etc ( hey, hotel choc, can you make those symbols a bit larger?  They're very difficult to interpret in such a small size) but no list of flavours.

Overall our verdict was that it is a good concept, a little overpriced with not particularly yummy chocolate.

There are four other advent calendars in the range.  I think the others have festive shaped chocs inside and are priced at £12-17

 Rather interesting that their website is also advertising a 'Cheese and Chocolate Tasting Experience.'  As a youngster I discovered the taste sensation of pairing mature cheddar cheese with Kit Kats, a guilty pleasure, but I've always been a fan of sweet-savoury combos.  They even use chocolate as a 'cracker' for cheese and serve sweet relishes instead of Branston.  Whooh.  Brave, but I'm liking it.

Gingerbread House - From Flat Pack to Luxury Home

We bought a 'flat-pack' gingerbread house from Lori at Shute Fruit (appearing at a Farmers' Market in Devon near you) for a very reasonable £4.  This included a recipe for Royal Icing and a few guidance tips on assembly. This was far easier (and less swearing) than IKEA furniture.  We made sure the icing was pretty sticky and not too drippy and held each wall in place for a few minutes, even though we were extremely eager to get on with the sweet decoration.

We were pretty pleased with the results - this was a joint effort with my 9 and 11 year old kids.

 This one was from 2007, and although adorable, you can see that we weren't master builders at that stage:

I can't resist one more picture of the 2010 effort.  11 year old daughter made the additional gingerbread tree and reindeer.  Sweets from various sweet shops - wish we still had Woolworths Pick and Mix!