Winter berry napoleon

1

A long overdue wintery post!!! 

These are the sweet treats I prepared for the winter festivities back in December, they are so easy to make and you are sure to impress your guests with these delicious mini bites :)

Why not try this recipe by replacing Christmas tree shapes with heart ones for the upcoming Valentines  celebrations? Your Valentine will fall head over heels for them! 

Ingredients:

1 packet of ready made puff pastry

Creme patissiere (click here for my recipe)

Your favourite berries ( I used blueberries and raspberries)

Icing sugar

Method:

-Roll out the puff pastry and cut into your favourite shape with a cookie cutter (picture 2 & 3)

- Pierce the pastry with a fork or toothpick (picture 4)

-Dust the top of the puff pastry with a icing sugar ( picture 5)

- Bake in the oven at 190 C until golden brown (about 10 mins)

-Leave the puff pastry to cool at room temperature and pipe the creme patissiere onto it (picture 6 & 9)

-Add a layer of berries and top with a layer of puff pastry (picture 10)

- Dust with icing sugar and enjoy !! (picture 11) 

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Peanut butter and chocolate Christmas trees

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2014!!!

We will be heading to L.A for the holidays and soooo looking forward to that (I'll try to keep my instagram up to date) :) 

In the meantime I will leave you with a little super simple recipe, I took the inspiration from a rather traditional peanut butter squares recipe and shaped them into Christmas trees just to give this treat a Christmas twist!

(Click here for the recipe) 

Enjoy ;)

Winter spices - part 2

Hi all!

Here is my final post on my winter baking week. These past few months have been pretty busy ones so I decided to take the time I had to make various gingerbread goodies.

I made mini gingerbread houses to accompany a delicious eggnog (recipe here), the only modifications I made to Martha Stewart's recipe was to add cinnamon instead of nutmeg, whip up some homemade whipped cream and as for the alcohol I added an amazing local Rum that we bought in Anguilla when we were in the Caribbean a couple of years ago... it really made a difference ;)

 I also gave a second go at making a big gingerbread house (click here to view last years house) and baked various shapes of gingerbread cookies including some gingerbread men to hang in the Christmas tree :) 

After all this sweet indulgence during the holidays it's time to kick in with the New Year's resolutions which for me means getting back in shape ;)

Enjoy! 

Winter spices

Hi all & Happy New Year!

It's been a while since I last posted but I guess that for everyone the Christmas/New Year season is a pretty busy one!

This post is a little overdue as Christmas was 2 weeks ago but I thought I would share with you my 2012 gingerbread recipe. 

This year I decided to try out Martha Stewart's recipe (click here to view). I absolutely loved it and the cookies turned out simply delicious; the only modification I made was to substitute the molasses with Lyle's Golden Syrup as I am not a fan of molasses. It might sound a little strange to add pepper into a cookie dough but trust me it blends in perfectly with the rest of the spices.

In my next post I will show you the different Christmas goodies I made with the dough;) 

...And here is a little preview of my next post... can you guess what I have been baking?! ;)

Christmas baking week - My first gingerbread house

Here we are in the final series of the Christmas baking week: my first gingerbread house.

I thought it was going to be the most challenging recipe of the week but it turned out to be pretty simple!

For the gingerbread dough recipe click here,  once you have cut out the dough into house pieces bake them and let them cool down completely. In the meantime prepare the royal icing which is what you will use to put the house together, the texture of the icing should be very thick if not there is chance your house will fall apart, here is the recipe I used:

Royal icing recipe: 

2 egg whites

4 cups of confectioner's sugar

1/2 tsp of cream of tartar 

Once you have constructed the house decorate as you wish using the rest of the icing and your favorite candy! I also added my Christmas meringues do you remember them?   

I wish you all a Merry Christmas :)

Christmas baking week - Gingerbread feast!

Here is the second part of my Christmas baking week : Gingerbread men!

What would the Christmas holiday be without the smell of delicious wintery spices of cakes and mulled wine in the house?! As I looked for the perfect recipe I realized that most recipes use molasses which I am not too fond of, therefore I use Lyle's golden syrup (previously used in this recipe). 

Gingerbread men are also a delicious treat to bring to the office and they can also make a fun decoration for your Christmas tree!

*Recipe here 

*Spices used for the gingerbread men: ground ginger, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon*

*Make holes before cooking them if you wish to hang them on your Christmas tree*

*A perfect treat to bring to the office (labels designed by me and can also be found here)*