Crispy Chocolate Puddings

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Toys in every store
But the prettiest sight to see is the holly that will be
On your own front door

                                                                                 Johnny Mathis

The last post in my Christmas box series is amazing but simple twist on the Chocolate Crackle to make them Yuletide-fit.  This recipe for Crispy Chocolate Puddings comes from the Woolworths website, and is a simple but effective Christmas treat. 

To make these puddings, you will need:

1/2 cup sultanas
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
200g dark chocolate, chopped
80g diced butter
3 cups Rice Bubbles (rice krispies)
1/4 shredded coconut
50g white chocolate
12 red glace cherries

Lightly spray a 12 hole muffin tin with oil.

Put the chocolate and butter in a microwave proof bowl, and melt together in the microwave, stirring well to combine.

In a big bowl, combine the rice bubbles, sultanas, walnuts and coconut. Add the melted chocolate/butter mixture to the bowl and stir well to combine.  Divide the mixture evenly between the 12 muffin holes, and press in firmly.  Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Loosen each pudding from the sides of the muffin tin with a  spatula and carefully unmould upside down.  Melt the white chocolate, and cool slightly before spooning over the top of the puddings to resemble custard, and put a glace cherry on the top of each pudding.  Allow the white chocolate to set before serving.

Rocky Road and Rum Balls

This is the penultimate Christmas box post for this year, and I will make it easy for you and me with treats that I have made before.  First up is the Rocky Road at the top of this post, which I first made nearly nine years ago (wow, it does not feel like that long).  The recipe is from the Loreto Cooks cookbook, given to me years ago by Mayor Steve before he was mayor, and contains chopped marshmallows, Cherry Ripes and Turkish Delights - three of my favourite things! 

Next up is Rum Balls, a perennial favourite, for which I first posted the recipe in the infancy of this blog in 2007.  This year I rolled the rum balls ultra small and only the first wave of box recipients received them, as they were a stop gap until the next wave came along.

Are you giving edible gifts this year?  If so, what did you make, and what was your favourite?

TWD - Speculoos

This week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Speculoos, a spicy European biscuit that happens to be perfect for Christmas.

Dorie's recipe suggests simply slicing and baking these biscuits, which is exactly what I did, although you could also roll out the dough and cut out the biscuits.

Before slicing my biscuit dough logs, I brushed them with egg wash and rolled them in gold sanding sugar.  I think it added to the festive nature of these spicy cookies, and I added them to this year's Christmas boxes as an efficiency so that I didn't have to bake extra biscuits for the boxes.

I thought these Speculoos biscuits were rather tasty (I ate the gnarly offcuts from the ends of the dough logs).

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

Roast Pork with Cherry Sauce - Red Tractor December

Well, this year is nearly over - where did it go?  I have reached December in my Red Tractor calendar, and the final recipe for this year is Christmas Pork with Cherry Sauce.

The calendar quote says it all:

I was very pleased with the crackle that I got on my roast pork - it is a fabulous colour:

My unusual choice of vegetables with the finished pork arose from the fact that I originally had planned to make stir fry for the week, but ended up making this pork instead. The stir fried vegetables were good, even if they did clash a little with the cherry sauce.

To make your own Christmas Pork with Cherry Sauce, you will need:

2kg boned and rolled pork shoulder (I used pork leg)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons salt

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees Celsius (fan forced).  Unroll the pork and pat the skin dry with a paper towel.  Score the skin diagonally with a sharp knife (and I mean sharp - I used a box cutter).  Re-roll the pork and tie  with string to secure.  

Brush the oil over the pork and rub with sea salt.

Put the pork on a roasting rack in a roasting pan and roast for 20 minutes or until the skin starts to blister.  Decrease the oven temperature to 170 degrees Celsius, and cook the pork for another 70-90 minutes or until the crackling is golden and crisp.

Rest the pork for up to half an hour before serving.

For the cherry sauce:

Melt 60g chopped butter in a saucepan.  Add 2 chopped shallots and 2 teaspoons chopped thyme.  Stir over the heat for 5 minutes.  Add 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar, and cook for a further minute or until reduced by half.  

Add 300g pitted cherries (fresh or frozen), 1/4 cup cherry jam and 1/4 cup water to the saucepan.  Bring  the sauce to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and simmer the sauce until slightly thickened.  Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste.

Candy Cane Fudge

This year's Christmas box production line is well under way, and a new item that I made for this year's boxes is Candy Cane Fudge from the Australian Women's Weekly website.

If you are scared of making sweets, don't be with this fudge - it is super duper simple.  If you can melt things together without burning them, then you can absolutely make this fudge.

The finished product is creamy and sweet, and the peppermint tones down the sweetness as well as adding festive red and white colour.

To make it, you will need:

500g white chocolate melts
395g can condensed milk
30g butter
1/3 cup crushed candy canes (I blitzed them in the food processor)
extra crushed candy canes to sprinkle on top of the fudge

Line a 20cm square cake tin with baking paper.

Put the chocolate melts, condensed milk and butter into a medium sized heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (ie a homemade bain marie).  Stir the ingredients over the simmering water until melted and smooth.

Remove the bowl from the heat and stir in the 1/3 cup crushed candy canes.  Working quickly before the fudge starts to set, scrape the fudge into the prepared cake tin and spread evenly in the tin.  Rap the tin on the bench a few times to eliminate air bubbles.

Put the fudge into the fridge for ~ 2 hours to set before  cutting into squares.

Eat and enjoy!

TWD - Double-Ginger Crumb Cookies

This week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Double-Ginger Crumb Cookies.  They earn their moniker from fresh minced ginger in the cookie dough and ground ginger in the crumb on top.

When I went to make these, I looked at the photo and thought, "meh".  However, don't be fooled by their appearance - these cookies taste seriously delicious.  They also smell devine when baking.  The ginger taste is subtle rather than in your face.

My cookies baked quicker than the 21-23 minute cooking time stated in the recipe, so it pays to watch them carefully and rely on your nose.

In a first, the recipe said the batch made 18 cookies, and I got 18 cookies!  I was quietly pleased with this as it means I rolled the dough to the right thickness and made the cookies the size intended by their creator, Dorie.

To see what everyone else made this week and what the thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

Blueberry Jam

Planning for this year's Christmas boxes is well under way, and I have taken another step in the project by making another item for 12 of the boxes - small jars of blueberry jam.

I used this recipe for blueberry jam from Taste.com.  It was very easy to make, just time consuming in that you have to stay close by the jam while it is on the stove so that it doesn't burn while your back is turned.  The jam gets a terrific citrus-flavoured lift from the addition of Cointreau, which not only brightens the flavour, but makes the jam a little less sweet.

To make the jam look a little bit fancy, I added some free labels from A Family Feast and CSR Sugar:

If you have a yen to make this easy blueberry jam, you will need:

4 x 125g punnets blueberries
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup Cointreau
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Put all of the ingredients into a large heavy based saucepan.  Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer.  Allow the jam to simmer for 30-35 minutes or until the jam reaches the correct consistency (ie when you put some onto a plate that has been in the freezer and run your finger through it, the jam does not run back to fill the gap).

Spoon the hot jam into sterilised jars, put the lid onto the jars and turn the jars upside down to allow the hot jam to contact all the surfaces of the jars, then turn the jars the right way up.  Allow the jam to cool completely in the jars before adding labels.  Makes ~ 500ml jam.

Give as gifts or enjoy yourself!