World Saving Mincemeat and Cinnamon Slice.

OmGeeeee...there has mean a Fife based apocalypse. Either that or the earth has been sucked into a black hole and you are having the same ‘WHERE HAS ALL THE DAYLIGHT GONE?’ experience as me. Seriously...where is it? Will be ever see the sun light again? Will my photos ever look bright? Be I able to do yoga in the front room with the light on without feeling like some sort of crazy exhibitionist? I fear not.

Quick, we must eat shortbread...I’m pretty sure that’s official government advise; ‘In end of world situations....butter and sugar must be relied upon for solace and salvation’....that sounds about right doesn’t it? The Queen, at least, would deffo go along with that.

If you’re reading this tomorrow and it’s beautiful and sunny and you’re thinking I probably feel awfully silly about my panic, well you would be wrong, because this recipe is a saviour in more ways than one...even if it doesn’t save the world from doom, at least it will save that half jar of mincemeat that you’ve kept in your fridge because you definitely, probably, might, perhaps do something with it soon.

Here make THIS. It might save your life, it might save you from mould...either way you’d be silly not to, just to be on the safe side. Merry Christmas. With Love and Cake.

Cinnamon and Mincemeat Slice.

A few notes:

• If you don't have a food processor, just sieve the dry ingredients to combine, and rub the butter in with your fingertips.
• You could make this is a bigger tin and have a thinner slice if you fancied.

Serves 8-10

You will need

1 x 18cm loose bottomed cake tin, buttered and floured

300g plain flour

pinch salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

50g cornflour

100g caster sugar

300g butter, cold from the fridge and cubed

1 x small jar mincemeat

1 tbsp demerara sugar

• Preheat the oven to 160°c.
• Pop the flour, salt, cinnamon, cornflour and caster sugar in the bowl of your food processor and pulse to combine.
• Add the butter and whizz until the mixture starts to clump together.
• Tip half the mixture into your prepared cake tin and press it down with your fist or the back of a smoon to create a dense, even layer.
• Bake for 15 minutes, until the shortbread base is just starting to turn golden.
• After the bottom layer has cooled for a few minutes, spread over the mincemeat.
• Now tumble over the remaining shortbread mixture and spread and press into an even a layer as possible, though this is harder to do than the bottom layer, so don't be sad if it ends up a bit nubbly, it'll still taste lovely.
• Sprinkle the demerara sugar over the top and bake for 40 minutes, when the top should be golden and firm.
• When cooked, remove the sides of the tin as soon as possible; before the mincemeat has a chance to cool and cause a sticking disaster, by standing the cake tin on a mug and sliding the sides of the tin down.
• Leave to cool completely before slicing and feeling like a world saviour.

Yule Log.

Yule Log. Bûche de Noël. What more is there to say....other than MAKE IT. It is one of those recipes that looks complicated and so people are all "Wowzas, you made a Yule Log, you must be some sort of baking fiend"....and you can be all "well yes, ahem, *humble smile*, I do bake a lot", but on the inside you'll be like "Yule Log is easy fool"....but only on the inside.

If you are of the 'cake doesn't really count without inches and inches of icing'-school, it is the peeeerfect cake for you. It's basically not much cake held together and prettied up with SHED-LOADS of icing. Helllooooo it's Christmas, eating butter by the spoonful is practically mandatory.

And if you like brownies (hi, er, everyone), you will lovelovelove this. The sponge is all light and airy but then sinks as it cools so ends up being dense and fudgy. Dense and fudgy people...LIKE BROWNIES.

So I hope I've made myself clear...you can make this cake, you should make this cake, you will LOVE this cake, and those that come a visitin' with loads of presents for you to put under your tree (yeah?) will provide you with enough ooohs and aaaahs to give your soul a glow long enough to stave off the January blues. Now gooooo...bake. With Love and Cake.

Bûche de Noël.

From Nigella Christmas

A few notes:

• This recipe requires a fair amount of egg beating, so unless you want a major upper-body work out, use an electric hand whisk or free standing mixer.
• I made the icing in my food processor, as Nigella does. If you don't have one, simply sieve the icing sugar into a bowl, and instead of the 'whizzing' that is required, you'll need to beat with an electric hand whisk or plain old wooden spoon.

Makes 1 yule log

You will need

1 x swiss roll tin, they are usually 13x9 inches, lined with plenty of greaseproof

For the cake

6 eggs separated

150g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

50g cocoa

icing sugar to dust

For the icing

175g dark chocolate

200g icing sugar

225g butter, at room temperature

1 tbsp vanilla extract

• Preheat your oven to 180°c.
• In a medium bowl, whisk the egg whites until just starting to stiffen.
• Whisk in 50g of the caster sugar and continue to whisk the whites until they form stiff peaks but don't look too dry.
• In another, nice and large, bowl, whisk together the egg yolks with the rest of the caster sugar until thick and pale.
• Add the vanilla and whisk a bit more.
• Sieve in the cocoa and fold in gently until well combined.
• Briskly stir a tablespoon of the egg whites into the yolks to combine well.
• Then, in 3 batches, gently fold in the rest of the whites.
• Pour the moussy batter into the lined Swiss roll tin and bake for 20 minutes until puffed up and set.
• Let cool in the tin for a while; it will sink a bit but that's fine.
• Prepare a sheet of greaseproof paper on your work surface by sprinkling it with plenty of icing sugar.
• Turn out the sheet of sponge onto the dusted paper.
• Now to make the icing...melt the chocolate gently, either in a microwave or over a pan of hot water.
• In a food processor, pulse the icing sugar to remove any lumps.
• Add the butter to the processor and whizz until smooth and well combined.
• Add the cooled melted chocolate and vanilla extract and whizz again until you have a smooth and shiny paste.
• Now to assemble. Spread a few tablespoons of the icing over the flat sponge; be liberal, you have a made a LOT of icing.
• Using the greaseproof paper on which the sponge sits, roll the sponge into a Swiss roll; you will need to pick up the long side of the greaseproof paper close to you and use it to press the sponge into a spiral.
• When you have a fairly tight roll, cut off one of the ends at an angle; this will make one of the twigs coming of the main log.
• Transfer the main log onto your serving dish and sit the 'cut off end' somewhere along one of the sides as I have in the pictures.
• Cover the whole thing with icing, filling in cracks and covering the exposed ends.
• Clean any messy bits you've made on the serving dish with a piece of kitchen roll.
• Make the woody effects by dragging something like a cocktail stick or little knife along the length of the log, and make swirls on any ends.
• Sprinkle with lots and lots of snow (icing sugar) and make whichever cutesysute scene you fancy.

Egg Nog.

I have been meaning to make Egg Nog for foooorevvvver. I never really knew what it was, what was in it or how to make it....I just knew that I wanted it. Turns out....it's boozy custard. It's custard AND YOU DRINK IT. Even as I write this, having made it and drank it, I'm not sure if I'm over-excited because obviously drinkable, alcoholic custard is the most genius invention ever or that I'm actually a bit aggitated because boozy drinkable custard is an insane idea and the thought of it is a teeny bit gross.

I think maybe it's a mixture of the two. It is indeed delicious and the brandy and nutmeg make it wholey festive feeling; I really do feel very 'Little Women' at just the thought of the words Egg Nog, but the fact that I watched myself whisk eggs and cook them and pour them into glasses gives it an ever so slight yuck factor.

Ahhh so the answer is to get someone else to make fooor you. Thaaaaat's what you should do. Because I wouldn't want you to miss out, it is a massive treat after all....and if you're a creamy, after-dinner cocktail fan, I'm thinking Brandy Alexanders or the infamous White Russian, then this is RIGHT up your street.

With the rest of mine I'll probably use it as actual custard over mince pies and such like...because that makes total sense, brandy cream is an actual thing people make. But lets be honest, tis the season for things not to make sense really....a fat man fitting down chimneys, flying reindeer, little elves making X-Boxes...and if we can believe all that then should be able to embrace drinkable custard right? With Love and Cake.

Egg Nog.

A few notes:

• When doing my research for this recipe I find millions and trillions of different versions...some that separated the eggs, some with bourbon, some cold some hot etcetcetc. This is an emalgumation of several that I think feels like the most traditional and is definitely the least expensive in terms of shelling out for loads of different bottles of spirits.
• If you don'y have brandy maybe you have whisky and could use that instead, or maybe Bailey's would work too....eveeevery one has baileys.
• You can serve egg nog freshly warm out the pan or chill it and serve cold...I guss it just depends how warm you want your cockles to be.
• If the idea of drinking custard doesn't appeal, this would be perfect in the place of regular custard over Christmassy delights like mince pies or Christmas pudding.

Makes 4 small servings

You will need

1 pint milk

25g caster sugar

good splash vanilla extract

3 eggs

100ml brandy

good pour of double cream

freshly grated nutmeg

• In a medium sized heavy based saucepan, heat the milk and sugar gently until just starting to boil.
• Whisk the eggs gently in a bowl with the vanilla and slowly pour over the milk, whisking constantly.
• Give the saucepan a quick wipe around so it's pretty much clean and pour the eggy milk back into the pan.
• Return the pan to a very gently heat, stir fairly often until the mixture is thickens slightly and a good coating sticks to the back of a wooden spoon.
• Remove the mixture from the hot pan or it will continue to cook.
• Once it has cooled slightly, whisk in the brandy and cream.
• You can serve as it is, toasty warm, or chill and serve cold. Either way dust with plenty of nutmeg.

Mincemeat Ravioli: The Gin Lover's Mince Pie.

Have you made mince pies yet? Do you keep meaning to but don’t quite get round to it? Do you love the idea of having a constantly restocked pile to greet you when you arrive home but can’t quite be bothered because you keep going out for cocktails and gin always wins? Do you not intend to ever because, HELLO, you can buy them from M&S and the oven is where you store your shoes?

Well if the latter is true, then I don’t think you’re in the market to have your mind changed, and apparently M&S mince pies are in fact very lovely, so go ahead and keep being fabulous and ‘flour in your hair’-free. But if you’re in the other camps, and you just need to carve out that extra half an hour or don’t have the right shaped tin...then YeY, here comes Delia to our rescue.

These are genius; puffy, caramelised, mincemeat filled mouthfuls that you can literal have done, from start to finish, in 30 minutes. I remember making them several years in a row when I was pretty young, probably before I’d ever made a real mince pie, when all I had in my cookbook collection was Delia’s How to Cook Part 1, in which these delights feature. As with all the best recipes, its page is very messy.

Buy in the pastry and mincemeat...honestly, absolutely no one will care, and you can tick ‘make mince pies’ off you list without even breaking a sweat and still having time for gin. With Love and Cake.

(WHY yes, that IS a Christmas tree on my plate.)

Mincemeat Ravioli.

From Delia's How to Cook Part 1

A few notes:

• Make sure to check that your mincemeat is vegetarian, if you care about such things.
• If you have a bit more time, maybe you'd like to make your own pastry. Find the recipe HERE.
• These are so easypeasy that it would be no bother at all to double the recipe or make tweaks here and there. How about a crunchy dusting of demerara sugar before baking, or the addition of a few crumbles chestnuts to the filling?

Makes 15-20

You will need

a large baking sheet, greased

1x320g packet ready rolled puff pastry

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 medium jar mincemeat

icing sugar for dusting

• First things first, preheat the oven to 200°c.
• Spread out your pastry on a clean and lightly floured surface and roll it out so it is just a bit thinner than in arrives out of the packet.
• Then you want to cut it almost in half, but not quite. Basically you want 2 rectangles, with one just slightly bigger than the other; aim for one being about 30x25cm and the other being 32x 28 cm.
• Now brush the smaller rectangle all over with egg.
• Spoon teaspoonfuls of mincemeat evenly along one edge of the smaller rectangle, leaving a border of about 1 cm between each spoonful and between the edge of the pastry. 
• Continue row after row of mincemeat, evenly across the pastry.
• Lay the larger rectangle of pastry, gently over the top of the mincemeat.
• Press down the pastry to seal each parcel of mincemeat and brush the top with more egg.
• Cut along each gap to separate the parcels from each other; you can use a fluted pastry wheel for this if you want a frilly edge.
• Transfer each parcel to your prepared baking sheet and if you're worried that the edges might not be sealed enough, press down around the outsides with a fork.
• Bake for 15 minutes or until the pastry is puffed up and golden. Don't worry about any mincemeat leakages, just make sure you remove the parcels to a wire rack before the sugar in the mincemeat cools and sticks to the baking tray.
• You could either just sprinkle with lots of icing sugar and serve as they are, or when they have cooled and you're ready to serve, you could transfer them back to a backing tray, sprinkle liberally with icing sugar and stick under a hot grill for a few moments. The sugar with caramelise and turn golden. Sprinkle with more icing sugar and serve.
• Merrrrrry Christmas.

Stollen: A Christmas Twinkle for a Dreary Day.

It is DARK, it is COLD, it is BLOWY and just generally rather horrid up here in the frozen wastelands of the north. It’s ok really, I don’t have to go anywhere, and yesterday, when I did, it was a beaut of day. But I just thought we should try extra hard to shine some light into this dreeeeary Friday...and what better light is there than sparkly, twinkly, oh so heart warming CHRISTMAS LIGHT.

Yesyes, I admit it, I’m there now, I’ve unleashed the Christmas beast and it’s all the way down the glitter hill from here. I am going to spend the next week crafting my socks off. There will be lanterns, there will be bunting, there will be cards and there will be lights, even mooore lights than usual and it will smell GREAT.

However, here I should calm down, slow down and clarify that I am indeed aware that it is still too early for some and that glitter is excluded from some peoples’ agenda, eeeeven at Christmas (though I’d keep that to yourself around here if you don’t want to be struck off numerous Christmas card lists).

So yes, I started gently, no gold or stars or fairy lights. Just a lovely understated loaf with a surprise treat inside; something that looks and feels wholly impressive without being showy and without tantrum inducing effort. You can buy them sure, you can even eat little slices for free at your local German market (probably) but homemade will taste better and look better...and you can avoid marzipan stinginess....everybody wins. With Love and Cake.

Stollen.

From Delia's Complete Cookery Collection

A few notes:

• You don'y have to do the glaze thing if you don't fancy.....how about a giant avalanche of icing sugar instead?
• Feel free to chop and change the types and quantities of the dried fruit...keep the overall quantity about equal but do tweak proportions according to your taste. 
• When the stollen has gotten a bit old and stale, it if WONderful toasted and spread with butter.

Makes 1 large loaf

You will need

150ml milk, warm

50g caster sugar

2 tsp yeast

300g strong white bread flour

pinch salt

110g soft butter

1 egg, beaten

40g currants

50g sultanas

50g glacé cherries, rinsed, dried and quartered

25g candied peel

25g almonds, chopped

zest 1/2 lemon

175g marzipan

110g icing sugar

juice 1/2 lemon

• Mix the milk with 1 tsp of the caster sugar and the 2 tsps of yeast and set aside.
• Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl and rub in the butter with your fingertips until it is only present in fine grains.
• Stir in the egg and the milk mixture and bring it all togther to form a dough.
• Knead until stretchy and shiny and then form it into a tight ball and pop it back in its bowl.
• Leave somewhere cosy to rise for around 1 hour.
• Work the dried fruit, almonds and lemon zest into the dough until evenly distributed.
• Roll out the dough to a 25x20cm rectangle.
• Using your hands, roll the marzipan into a sausage shape, about the length of the rectangle of dough.
• Place the marzian in the centre of the dough and fold it over the marzipan so it gets wrapped and transfer your log to a baking sheet; flipping it over so the join is underneath.
• Leave to rise again for another hour.
• Preheat the oven to 190°c.
• Bake your stollen for 35-40 minutes until golden and filled out.
• Remove to a wire rack to cool.
• Meanwhile, mix up the glaze be sifting the icing sugar into a bowl and stirring in as much lemon juice as it takes, starting off with 1 tablespoon, to make a smooth, fairly stiff paste.
• While the stollen is still warm, pour the glaze over the log and let it dribble down the side as it pleases.
• CLose the curtains, light some candles and tuck in.

Panettone and Butter Pudding.

I think I've told you before, that, I'm afraid, I would never ever choose bread and butter pudding. It's just too....bready. I like my puds to be filling yes, but crunchy and creamy with different textures and tastes....definitley not bready. 

But hey, turns out, either I only think I don't like bread and butter pudding and in reality I find it yummy, ooooor panettone and butter pudding is a different beast all together and the extra butteryness, the extra softness and the extra citrussyness make for a really rather scrumptious offering that I really want more of...NOW.

I am not suggesting that you go to the effort of making your own panettone especially for the purpose of repurposing it (though if you had a lovely lazy day at home it would be the perfect kitchen pottering process) but if you make it yourself you will realise that it does not keep magnificently well and you might have a few leftover after a few days that have staled a bit, orrrrr you might be given one of those giant beasts of panettone, you know, the ones bigger than your whole head, and enjoy having it for breakfast for a few days in a row but then start to dispare about sinking under a sea of the stuff....either way, make this, even if you wouldn't ever choose to make bread and butter pudding or choose it from a menu.

 Make it, and you will eat it and question your whole being....ok maybe not your whole being but the puddingliking part of your being and that is a fairly significant part of mine, and yours, I would suppose, too. With Love and Cake.

Panettone and Butter Pudding

A few notes:

• This is a nice simple recipe that doesn't require any fiddle or faff...so don't fret majorly over quantities; use enough panettone to fit your dish and add a bit more cream or milk to your custard if you want more
• This reheats well; use the oven to keep the crispy top or the microwave for emergensies.

Serves 4

You will need

a small baking dish, well buttered

around 300g panettone, which works out as 2-3 individual ones, thickly sliced

2 eggs

150ml milk

2 tbsp double cream

1 tbsp caster sugar

1-2 tbsp demerara sugar

freshly grated nutmeg

• Arrange your panettone in your baking dish in a few layers and press it down slightly.
• Whisk togther the eggs, milk, cream and caster sugar and pour the mixture over the bread.
• Set aside for 15 minutes to allow the bread to soak up the custard.
• Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 180°c.
• Sprinkle the pudding liberally with demerara sugar and freshly grated nutmeg before baking for 20-25 minutes, at which point it should be crisp and golden on top but still soft underneath.
• Serve with cream or custard or ice cream....or all three.

Individual Panettone....IN TIN CANS!!!

Don’t fret don’t fret...this is not me ‘getting my Christmas on’, not yet anyway (you should SEE what’s going on in my head though....look at my pinterest Christmas board to see all the excitement that I’m dying to let out). Nono, I’m holding it in (deep breaths) and am nowhere NEAR pressing play on Band Aid or turning the mulled wine on to heat (deeper breaths).

I aaaam aware, however, that December is imminent, that the planning/panicking thing has begun for many and that Stir-Up Sunday has been and gone now so having the odd idea floating around is no bad thing. It’s no use me giving you a load of Christmassy ideas just a few days before the big event...you need to write shopping lists, plan menus, make place cards....No? You’re not a mental control freak? You just intend to see how it goes and enjoy it? Okkkkkkkkkaaaay, whatever suits you best (*weeeirdooo*).

So I have for you ....panettone. I LOVE it, but had never made it before. It seemed specialist and a little bit alien from by kitchen....I mean who owns a Panettone tin? Not me, and if not me then definitely not you. But then I saw a recipe for individual panettones made in tins...TINS...I have looooads of tins. Baked beans come in tins.....I ALWAYS eat baked beans.

I was a bit worried about how they would turn out...how many times I would cut my hands on the tins...how much  dough would stick inside the tin and how sad that would make me. But it all turned out brilliantly and they look just like panettone, and taste like panettone and are super cute and EASY. Waahooo. I’m pretty sure I will make these again as the festivities get closer but I am SO glad I tried early so I could tell you about them. Go on...go eat beans. With Love and Cake. 

Individual Panettone.

A few notes:

• If you are a kitchen swot and dooo have a panettone tin, this recipe will happily make one larger one...just cook for a bit longer, more like 40 minutes.
• If you want to make a large one but don't have a panettone tin, you could definitely use a 20cm high sided cake tin and again, cook for around 40 minutes. The loaf will just be a little squatter than a traditional panettone, I'm sure it would still taste divine though. 
• If you are indeed using cans, it's best to use ones that you have opened with a can opened rather than them already having a ring pull, which leaves a lip and will make it hard to get the panettone out.

Makes 6 individual panettone

You will need

6 empty tins, cleaned and label removed

greaseproof paper

a good hunk of butter, melted

1 tsp caster sugar

3 tsp dried yeast

4 tbsp warm water

100g butter, at room temp

50g caster sugar

3 eggs

zest 1/2 lemon

400g strong white bread flour

1 tsp salt

100g currants or raisins

75g mixed peel

• First we make the dough. In a small bowl, stir together the tsp of caster sugar, yeast and milk and set aside.
• In a large bowl beat the butter and sugar together until pale in colour and light and fluffy in texture.
• Add the eggs and beat in one at a time followed by the lemon zest.
• Gently stir in the flour and salt and finally add the yeast mixture which, by now, should be very frothy and foamy.
• Mix with your hands to form a smooth dough and then turn out onto a clean surface to knead for about 5 minutes, at which point the dough should be shiny and stretchy.
• Pop the dough back into its bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave somewhere fairly warm and cosy for around an hour.
• Meanwhile, line the tins. Cut out a circle of greaseproof paper to fit the base of each tin and a rectangle to line the sides. 
• Brush the inside of each tin with plenty of melted butter, and then, using the buttery pastry brush to help you, poke your circles of paper to the bottom and roll the rectangles up and pop inside each tin to line the sides.
• When the dough has about doubled in size, tip it out of the bowl and knead in the dried fruit by flattening the dough, sprinkling a handful of fruit over it and folding and kneading the dough around it, repeating the process until all the fruit is incorporated.
• Split the dough into 6 and drop each piece into a tin. 
• Sit the tins on a baking sheet and keep the baking sheet cosy and warm until the dough has risen almost as far as the top of the tins; this should take 1-2 hours.
• Preheat the oven to 190°c and bake the panettone for 20-25 minutes, at which point they should be bronzed on top and poking out the top of the tins.
• Leave them to cool in the tins until you can easily handle them. They should then just fall out of the tins with very little bother....are you proud yet??

Mont Blanc.

Ohgollygosh...I’m going to say the C-word, I just can’t help it, it’s been welling up for a while....CHRISTMAS. Oops sorry. I know I know, you’re running away...fast, I can hear your wails. But. I do promise that after today I will file it away at least until the actual month is upon us.

I’m just so easily excited about these things. All I need is the mere hintiest-hint of glitter and I’m all of a flutter. When I heard through the twitter-vine that my fav farm shop had got it’s glitter on, I ran there right away...okok not riiight away, I was in my PJs and it was night time, but the very next day I ran there...can you imagine me...like Phoebe’s running in Friends, limbs flailing and lots of wooping...don't worrrrrry I drove really.

I didn’t buy anything Christmassy; I bought mince and milk, but I soaked it all up and fed it to the ‘internally jumping for joy’ section of my brain. I also took away with me the notion of this easy-peasy pud, which, without being overtly glittery, gives the C-word a rather blatant nod.

In my head it’s a rather fancy thing, but I’m not sure why...maybe it’s the meringue; meringues are rather glam. And chestnuts always seem quite grown up to me. And there, right there, are the merits of this Mont Blanc...festively fancy feeling, while only requiring the merest slap-dash of an effort. Ok I’ll put the glitter away....for noooooow. With Love and Cake.

Mont Blanc

A few notes:

• I, rather smugly, made my own chestnut jam last year. I will NOT bore you with the recipe because it involves shelling a KILO of chestnuts and that HURTS your thumbs, so just buy some sweetened chestnut puree or ‘chestnut spread’ like this one which I’ve seen around and about...it might even be in supermarkets if you live in one of those exotic city places I've heard so much about.
• This would still very much be a Mont Blanc if you left off the chocolate sauce, and it would require even less effort to put together if you omitted it....I just felt like including it, for colour more than anything.
• Recipe for meringues....HERE. Or you could use bought ones.
• You could use whipped cream in the place of mascarpone of you fancied.

Serves 4

You will need

4 meringues

4 tbsp sweetened chestnut puree

For the cream

250g mascarpone

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tbsp vanilla extract

For the chocolate sauce

80g dark chocolate

a healthy knob of butter

1 tbsp caster sugar

1 tbsp golden syrup

100ml milk

• This is pretty much an assembly job, so first let's get all the components ready.
• For the cream, just whisk the vanilla and icing sugar into the mascarpone until smooth.
• To make the chocolate sauce, melt the chocolate and butter together either in a bowl over a pan of boiling water or in the microwave.
• Whisk in the sugar, syrup and milk, heat and stir a bit more so that you have a silky smooth sauce.
• Now for assembly...pop each meringue on it's serving plate and top with a tablespoon of the chestnut puree.
• Top that with a tablespoon of the mascarpone mixture and then pour over the chocolate sauce.
• If your feeling festive, sift over a sprinkling of icing sugar and pretend it's snow.

Chocolate Chestnut Tart.

Do you still have Christmas hanging around a bit? I do- mainly kitchen-wise. I have mooost of a Christmas cake, a WHOLE stollen, a Terry's chocolate orange (well, half), chocolate, chocolate, treats and chocolate. 

Now don't get me wrong, this is in nooooo way a bad thing. I love to feel stocked up, especially in treats, and I love Christmas so much that it can linger for as loooong as it likes. But this week I had a GIANT spring clean, well it started off giant, and with giant intentions, but I ran out of steam by the time I'd finished the kitchen...so by the time I got to the bathroom...well, anyhoo, it still feels kind of fresh and like it's a 'starting over' time of sorts. In Christmas leftover world, this translates to 'munch all the treats' time. *Happy Days*

First stop-chestnuts. Not strictly Christmas leftovers; I've had chestnut puree lurking at the back of the freezer for far too long, but they belong to Christmas and space in the freezer belongs to New Year's fresh start.

So Chocolate Chestnut Tart it is. Who knew leftovers could be quite so fancy. With Love and Cake.

Chocolate Chestnut Tart

A few notes:

• Serve with brandy cream, or even scrummyer, brandy mascarpone.
• If you have sweetened chestnut puree, you don't need to add the sugar to the mix. And if you want to up the chestnut factor even further you could add some chopped cooked chestnuts, or even some marron glace, maybe Granny left some lying around.

Makes 1 18cm tart

You will need

1 18cm tart or cake tin, well greased and floured

250g shortcrust pastry, I'm afraid I used shop bought but if you fancy making your own, pop on over to here and Delia will sort you out

For the filling

150g cream cheese

300g chestnut puree

2tbsp icing sugar

1 nice splosh brandy (optional)

For the topping

100g dark chocolate

1 tbsp double cream

1 level tbsp golden syrup

• Preheat your oven to 180°c.
• Roll out your pastry to a nice thin few mm and press tightly into your tin.
• Trim off the excess and prick all over the base with a fork.
• Now you need to blind bake, which means bake the pastry case without any filling, so put a big piece of baking paper over and inside the pastry case so you can fill with baking beads, or dried rice or beans; just something nice and heavy, without them touching the pastry.
• Bake the pastry for 20-25 minutes, until starting to turn golden and firm. If any parts of the base have risen and puffed up poke them back down again by pricking with a fork.
• While that cools you can get on with the filling. It's easy, just beat all the ingredients together and pour into the pastry case. 
• Bake for 45 minutes, when the filling should look just set, with still a hint of wibblewobble left.
• While the tart is cooling you just need to melt together the topping ingredients, either in a double boiler or slowlyslowly in a microwave.
• Pour over the chestnut layer and leave for a little bit to set.
• In fact, if you can resist it for a bit, this tart, well the filling at least, seems to get a little better after a few hours chilling in the fridge. Good luck.

My Christmas Eats.