Fa la la la laaaaa

Most festive greetings to you – and not sure about the rest of you buy it still feels like Christmas in this house. This is, of course, helped by the fact it was my son’s first birthday today and so we had another fun day of opening presents, eating nibbles for tea and looking at some of the presents for my children and going ‘I don’t remember who gave her that?’ Everyone has been so generous this year and I got some cracking bits and pieces – lots and lots of baking books, you’ll be pleased to hear. Including a nice ‘set’ of Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood – amazing!!

I have a plethora (yes – finally got to use it!) of images of my baking so far this week as not only last week’s Lemon Drizzle came out but also my Plum Pudding from a good few moons ago as well as my son’s birthday ‘cake’. The Lemon Drizzle was pretty full on actually as it didn’t rise as much as I was hoping it would so the syrup was really concentrated and I put on too much icing – although that was delicious! I think most people liked it and we certainly had more on Boxing Day. The Plum Pudding was pretty bloody lovely, if I do say so myself. It might look charred but it’s not – and it was surprisingly light (Xmas Pud can be soooo stodgy!) and crunchy and I was pretty chuffed with it. I also had more on Boxing Day. Finally, the most favourite thing I have made my son so far was the Millionaire Shortbread – I have never seen someone so little, ramming it in so fast because he just LOVED the taste that much! Given the indulgences of the last few days, I toned it down a bit and made chocolate chip shortbread. It was pretty nice but not as crumbly as I’d hoped and my son didn’t go quite as wild (although he has been eating solidly for the last three days which might explain it!). Tasty, though my cookie shaping skills need work – the smaller ones were cut into the shape of his name but when I cooked them, they just became this big slab! Ah, well J

So to my weekend bake – I don’t honestly know except it will technically be a week bake as am off to the rugby on Sunday. I’ll be seeing Saracens v Northampton Saints in Milton Keynes and it will be the first premiership rugby match I’ve been to. I went to see Pontypridd once when I lived there, but that is my total rugby experience – so bring it on! It’s my husband’s birthday next week so I think I will do something he fancies so for once, this will be a surprise for all of us at the moment!

So to end..

“Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.”
Mary Ellen Chase