Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Mince Pie Disaster!!

To indulge my love of Christmas I spent the day baking Christmas goodies. I did of course start with the wonderful mince pie. I was lazy and used bought pastry and even used bought mince meat, it's all about the smell of them cooking not where the pastry came from. Disaster struck my lovely mince pies. They stuck to tin and sadly had to be distroyed in the process of removal (my dad was rather please with this as he then had a plate of mashed mince pies to spend the afternoon picking at) Out of the 24 only 14 survived. I made maripan stars to put on the tops to decorate them and to hide some of the more dodgy pastry. I do not think I am the master of mince pies, perhaps I should stick to buying them from the supermarket. 
 




I did not give up after my initial failure. I contined on to bake my Christmas cookie tree. I baked what seemed like a hundred biscuits (was probably more like 30) in all different star sizes. I then stacked them in height order, sticking them together with icing. The effect is supposed to be of a Christmas tree but it looks a little more like a pine cone. I added pink balls to the corners, icing sugar and some pink sprinkles. I am pleased with the end result even if it is a little wonky and pine cone ish. 
 


The last thing I baked today was cranberry cucpcakes. It was a recipe from the Primose Bakery cookbook. It was rather a strange and overly complex recipe for what is a very easy thing. Saying that I have not yet tasted the cupcakes. Once I have iced them with brandy butter frosting I will report back on the end result. 

I also wanted to show you the very over the top Mini Christmas cake I made for my family. It is basically the same as all the others only with a little more bling. 
 














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