Really don't know where the time has gone but as we are about to hit December I thought an update was in order.

I have pretty much decided that I will not be making Christmas cards this year, the decision eventually came down to me just not having the time – I may make a few and am currently working on a cross stitch pattern which will be incorporated into a card. The cross stitch was something I had bought when I went to a craft event in Cardiff at the start of October along with some card craft CD's have to say that the quality of the CD's is poor considering they cost £25 for 3, the cross stitch however only cost a £1 and I got off to a shaky start but seem to have gotten the hang of things now but again I find myself in a race against time and we all know time always wins!!

I have also found myself back in the kitchen and spent most of yesterday baking, I made a Christmas cake and some chocolate mints. The mints were surprisingly easy to make and because I used some butter during the cooking process the chocolate has an almost fudge like taste and texture and have a nice crunch like the expensive "Matchmaker" chocolates. The Christmas cake however took a little longer to cook (three and a half hours) and I have no idea how it tastes but today I have covered it in marzipan and will covering it in icing in a week or two.

My Christmas shopping has not gotten off to the best start as two presents ordered online are unlikely to turn up as the company has gone into administration – rather annoying as it went into administration on Friday but I ordered last Sunday so the books should have been sent out Monday or Tuesday. I have contacted my card company and requested that they claim the money back and have already gone and ordered the same products from another web site, think I will remember to always pay using my credit card to make sure that I have additional protection.

The two photos show the cake once out of the baking tin and then once it was covered with marzipan, ideally I should have have cut off the top of the cake to leave a flat surface but what I actually did was turn the cake over and cover it.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 29th, 2009 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Cooking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.