Ohh Jolly!

Hi Friend!

Sorry for being the laziest blogger in the world. I'm having one of those weeks/months/years but I am back on the horse. I think it is all down to the festive season, I get so excited I am too exhausted to do anything but be excited. There are presents to think about, our Christmas feast to dream up, puddings to make, lights to put up, cranky people to deal with... No wonder Santa is a fat, old goat living in the South Pole all I feel like doing is eating Ginger Nuts with a cup of tea and ordering some elves around to do it all for me, even then I'd probably still go grey.

 So because Christmas is such a strangely stressful time James and I have decided to by-pass the horrid shopping malls and superstores and make as many presents as we can. We are also ordering a few little goodies from companies that we love. Today we got some beautiful chocolates delivered to our door all the way from Western Australia (we guiltily decided they were worth the food miles when we tasted them). The company is Bahen and Co. and they have sourced non-genetically modified, organic cocoa beans and turned them into the most luscious chocolate with vintage machinery and well...visit their website http://www.bahenchocolate.com/ - they are a lot more eloquent than I.

In the Christmas spirit I have also started some festive baking, mostly procrastinating with scrumpy, easy things to avoid the fact that I still haven't made any Christmas puddings. One of these such things was an edible Christmas Wreath!
 It starts with a simple yeasted dough...

The Raspberry Christmas Wreath

•  Mix 1tsp dry yeast, 2 tbsp brown sugar, 125ml luke warm water, 1 1/2 tbsp warm milk  together and stand (5mins) until the yeast bubbles. 
• Add the yeast mixture to 1 1/2 cups of plain flour, 1 1/2 tbsp of olive oil,  1/2 cup of currants, the rind of an orange, 3 tsps of cinnamon and 1/2 tsp of ground cloves in a bowl. 
• Mix together to form a dough then turn out and kneed on a floured surface until smooth- 7 minutes or so.
•  Place dough in a bowl, cover with a tea-towel and leave to prove somewhere toasty for an hour and preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius.

From here you can make a simple raspberry or strawberry jam by cooking 200gms of the chosen (can be frozen) berries with 150gms of castor sugar over a medium heat until it thickens then cool completely or -use one of your favourite jams.

Rolling up the dough, if you are confused about where to make the cut think of cutting the roll in half from my left hand down length ways to my right

I must recommend making the raspberry jam, it was very easy and rather delicious. Make double and have it on toast.

•  Roll the rested dough out into a rectangle around 55cm to 25cm on a floured surface with some sort of rolling implement. I use a wine bottle but I suspect a rolling pin may suffice. 
• Spread with 1/2 a cup of jam, homemade or otherwise, and roll up quite tightly length ways like you would a jam roll.
• Once you have your jam roll looking dough, take to it with a very sharp knife  and slice it in half length ways. You will have a bit of a sticky mess, but this is what you want- to be able to see all the layers of jam and dough.
• Join the top of the two pieces together so you have one long half-a- jam-roll and slide onto a sheet of baking paper.
• Twist the dough carefully and join the ends together to form a wreath. Slide the wreath on the paper onto a baking tray.
• Brush with milk and sprinkle with raw or brown sugar then bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until it is completely cooked through.

The first cut of curranty goodness

You simply must eat some then and there, all hot and sticky with a cup of tea and a little cream, but save a slice for a midnight feast or morning tea the next day as the flavours seem to get even better.                        
   Leave it out of the fridge, tightly wrapped in a plastic bag and if you've forgotten about it for a bit toast it up as you would a hot-cross bun.

Thanks friend,
Ruby