Today I'm sharing a black and white photo of one of my new handmade Christmas decorations. Handmade by my clever mum, it's a 3D star and is hanging in our porch window and matches the material wreath shown in this Poinsettias, our Christmas tree and more wreaths post.
Wishing you and yours a very Happy Christmas!
Baubles, Fortnum & Mason style
I've said it before but I'm a bit of a magpie when it comes to sparkly things. So imagine my glee when MOH suggested popping into Fortnum & Mason on our way to Afternoon Tea. Somehow we just ended up in their Christmas shop, I just don't know how that happened...
It was a Saturday and the shop was rammed. Last year or the year before we'd bought F&M mince pies and they were gorgeous and worth their hefty price tag. Spotting the mince pies on the ground floor, we grabbed a box before heading towards the stairs and the upper levels, pausing to admire the suspended Christmas trees over the atrium and those throughout the store.
So with mince pies in hand we found the Christmas shop, it's on the third floor, alongside the fabulously named Gentleman's Accessories if you just want to happen upon it too. There were tables of jars, pots and baskets of baubles - a magpie's heaven.
Just look.
There were silver ones, mirrored ones and clear ones...
And gold of every shade, embellished with swirls, glitter and frosting as well as plain - if a gold decoration can ever be plain.
Or there were owls of varying sizes, either for the tree or for your mantelpiece.
Or perhaps you'd prefer the cute silvery bird above nestled in your tree? If birds aren't for you, perhaps feathers. The baubles below are feathered and were beautiful, however they are completely different to any of my existing decorations so having just one or two wouldn't cut it, and having enough to make an impact would be expensive.
There were of course plenty of reds and greens too - beaded, glittered and beautifully hand-painted with poinsettas.
The pinks and purples weren't left out either, with almost every shade represented.
And then there was a quieter, less riotous table where the pastel shades gathered in bowls of shiny and pearlised gloriousness calm.
But for me, the real star of the show and the thing that got our most serious consideration was the penguins. Of course, what every house needs is a wooden penguin! The smaller version (not shown) was £35, and they were incredibly tactile. MOH wasn't convinced because if there's one thing the Christmas adverts have taught us this year, it's that you can't just have one penguin, now can you?
So with our fill of glittery treats and Afternoon Tea beckoning, we paid for our mince pies and headed towards The Hampshire in Leicester Square and its oasis of calm to while away the afternoon with sandwiches, scones and the odd bottle of fizz. A completely different atmosphere - and one I'd recommend - to the frenzied shops nearby.
Our tree is now up at home and any of these baubles would look great on it - I'll admit though I tend to buy decorations after Christmas when they're better value. And while I love a coordinated look, it's something I don't think I ever quite manage, unless "throw-it-all-on" (or as least as much as I can before the tree groans) is a look! I'll share some pictures of our tree tomorrow, but what's your tree decorating style - do you have a themed look which changes year on year, or do you have a more "organic" approach and add to your stash each year?
I'm linking this post to Our World Tuesday.
Love this 54: Homemade fudge
Well, where to start? What's not to like about fudge? And homemade fudge has bells on (well not literally) and would make a great homemade gift. It's easy to make, has few ingredients, looks impressive and... am I selling it to you yet?
And then I remembered that during a recent tidy of a dresser drawer, among the many muffin, cupcake and petit four cases I found some edible star glitter, so it seemed the perfect opportunity to use some of that. I was pretty sure that I had a tin of evaporated milk in the cupboard too - I did, it was lurking under a tin of pilchards, like you do...
So with the sultanas, currants and raisins soaking in some bourbon (MOH is liberally feeding brandy to our Christmas puddings so I wasn't going to interfere with that, and our bottle of dark rum from Barbados last year, isn't opened yet) I weighed out the sugar and butter and added this to the evaporated milk and started to stir.
Now, if you're rather partial to more than one piece of fudge then I urge you to make this recipe! I was shocked at how few, but how much of each ingredient I was adding to the pan. This may sound odd but I'd never really considered the sugar content in fudge before, I just knew it was sweet and I liked it! I can quite happily pop square after square into my mouth. Perhaps this means I'm a visual person but seeing the quantities in front of me gave me a surprise - I guess I'd not considered it before - and while I will still eat fudge maybe I'll savour it just a bit more...
I don't have a sugar thermometer and boiled the fudgey liquid for ten minutes, before attempting the 'soft ball' test described in the recipe. Having not made fudge before I wasn't sure if mine was right or not - I gave it a few moments more and then decided to move on to the next stage of leaving it to cool without stirring for 5 minutes, which was harder than I expected it to be!
However after 5 minutes of peeking into the saucepan to observe any activity (there wasn't much, it just cooled) came ten minutes of a good arm workout! In went the dark chocolate and for ten minutes I was beating it until it was dark and glossy - and it was easy to notice the change. The hardest part was trying not to incorporate any sugar crystals from around the edge of the pan, and I'm not sure I managed 100% but, oh well...
Adding the fruit, spices and the remains of the bourbon I poured it into my prepared tin and wondered if it would set. I added some of my edible starry glitter at this stage as I wanted it to set alongside the fudge.
And it did set - phew - look at how the colour's changed, it's on the softer side of set but is still good. And yes I couldn't wait to try a small slice...
It was delicious - actually there's still some left so make that, it is delicious. I've packaged some up too so it looks a bit fancy and it might, just might be given as gifts this year...
And do you know what? That tin of evaporated milk I found, well it was a large one so because I loved the first batch so much and because it was so easy to make I made another batch. This time I altered the recipe slightly replacing white chocolate for the dark chocolate, glacé cherries for the fruit and some white rum for the va va voom! I'm also trying to think what other flavours I could make, what's your favourite fudge flavour?