Xmas Post :: Calico Lane - The Christmas Pudding

Guest Blogger - Calico Lane

madeit.com.au/CalicoLane

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The Christmas Pudding is kind of a big deal in my family. It is carried, reverently and aflame with brandy flame into the dining room after our huge Christmas lunch, ready to be smothered in custard, complimented and devoured.

Over the past four years or so, the preparation of The Pudding has become my job. I take it very seriously and use the same recipe that my mum has used since she was married; from The Australian Women’s Weekly in 1974. I have a photocopy of the recipe that was ripped out of the magazine, well stained and dog-eared from over thirty years of Christmas cooking.

The thing is, is that it is dead easy to make. But don’t tell anyone. It’s nice to impress people with a rich, fruity, moist pudding, and let them gush over what a wonderful job you have done.

Firstly, gather up all your dry ingredients. Yep, there’s carrot in it. Just trust me. It will be ok.


Also, did you know it’s much easier to cut prunes up with kitchen scissors than a knife? Awesome kitchen tip of the day.

Sift your flour and spices together, then add those to the fruit and stuff.


Gather your wet ingredients. Melt the butter and add it to the rest of the liquids. It’s best to let the butter cool a little first so you don’t end up scrambling your eggs.


Then dump the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix. You’ll need some muscles for this bit. You can be ruthless with the mixture – you can’t overmix this! It’s considered good luck for everyone in the house to have a mix of the pudding. Hubby does this under much duress.



Once mixed (by everyone) you can pour the mixture into greased pudding basins. This mixture makes either one big and one little pudding, or two medium puddings (or one super large pudding!)


Now the tricky part (i.e. where I wish I had four hands). If you’re using a regular pudding basin, you need to tightly cover the basin so that the pudding steams and cooks. Cut a circle of baking paper and a circle of foil quite a bit bigger than the top of the basin. We always fold a little pleat in ours to allow for steam, but I’m pretty sure you could get away with not doing that!

Put the two circles together, and with the baking paper on the inside (yes, I did it wrong) fold the edges over the edge of the basin. Take a long length of kitchen string and tie a loop in it like a noose. Lasoo the basin and pull the loop tight, securing the edges of the foil. Tie securely and then tie the string at the other side of the basin forming a loop with which to lift the pudding in and out of the water.


If you have a pudding steamer with a lid, easy! Pop the lid on and lock it.

Place your pudding on an upturned saucer in the bottom of a big pot and fill the pot with boiling water so that the water comes about two thirds up the side of the basin. Replace the lid of the pot and boil gently. A big pudding takes 4-5 hours and a small one about 3 hours. Keep an eye on the water and refill it if it starts to get a bit low.


These puddings will keep for a very long time! To help preserve them and make them even yummier, poke some holes in the pudding with a skewer and pour some brandy over the top every now and then. I’ve kept puddings for years – they really do improve with time.

When you are ready to serve, boil the pudding in the basin for another hour or so to warm it through. Turn it out of the basin onto a serving plate. Pour over brandy and light at your own risk! Have the custard and cream ready and fill yourself with pure Christmas joy!

And remember, not a word about how easy it was to make!

Christmas Pudding recipe {adapted from a recipe in The Australian Womens Weekly 1974}

Ingredients:
375g seeded raisins, chopped
375g sultanas
250g currants
185g prunes, chopped
90g slivered almonds
grated rind of one lemon
one large carrot, grated
250g soft white breadcrumbs
1 cup sugar
1 cup plain flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon mixed spice
4 eggs
¾ cup milk
½ cup brandy
½ cup stout
250g butter, melted

Method:
1. Grease pudding basins. Mix together the raisins, sultanas, currants, prunes, lemon rind, almonds, grated carrot, breadcrumbs and sugar.

2. Sift the flour with the salt, nutmeg and mixed spice and add to the dry ingredients. Lightly beat the eggs and add the milk, brandy, stout and melted butter.

3. Fill the prepared basin(s), leaving a space of about 1cm at the top. Cut a round of baking paper and foil and place of the top of the basin. Tie securely with string, leaving a large loop with which to lift the basin in and out of the boiling water.

4. Place an upturned saucer in the bottom of a large saucepan half filled with boiling water. Carefully place the pudding basin in the pan, making sure the water comes two-thirds up the sides of the basin. Replace the lid on the pan and gently boil for 4-5 hours for a large pudding and 3 hours for a small. As the water boils away replace it with more boiling water. The day the pudding is to be served, boil it for a further 1-2 hours.

Xmas Post :: little ray - Biscuits Jar Gifts

Guest Blogger - little ray

madeit.com.au/littleray

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I recently was part of a Christmas market, The Sugar and Spice Children’s Market in Woodend, Victoria where the organisers gave a biscuit mix in a jar to all of the stallholders as a present. I thought this was such a wonderful idea that I decided to make a few myself and give them as Christmas presents.

I found a great recipe on allrecipes.com which could be altered slightly for a Christmassy feel. Looking on the internet there are many versions that could be adopted or you could use your favourite tried and tested biscuit recipe.

It’s a very easy, quick idea for a present or alternatively you could use the recipe to make some biscuits for yourself!



I bought some glass jars at Spotlight (thought I’m sure you’d be able to find similar ones at many other places). They need to be approximately 1 litre in size to fit all of the ingredients.



The ingredients are -
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup Christmas themed red and green M&M’s (or other similar chocolates)
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/4 cups plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup rice bubbles (or similar)



With the jar layer the ingredients in as follows –
• White sugar
• Rolled Oats
• M&Ms
• Chocolate Chips
• Brown Sugar
• Plain flour, Baking Powder, Salt
• Rice Bubbles

insert image

Pack each layer down so that they will all fit in the jar. The jar I chose to use already had a nice lid but if you wanted to make it more festive you could cut a round of Christmas themed fabric or paper and tie it over the lid.

Place a label on the jar (or tied to the lid) with the following instructions –

Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Place baking paper on a tray. Empty the entire contents of the jar into a medium bowl. Add 1 large egg and 1/2 cup of margarine melted; mix well. Form dough into balls and bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven.









Enjoy!

Xmas Post :: a {she} state of mind - Gingerbread Love Gifts

Guest Blogger - a {she} state of mind
madeit.com.au/ashestateofmind

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Every Christmas my girls, Tahlia and Ellie get their baking grove on to make and decorate a batch (or two) of gingerbread to give to their cousins on Christmas Day. I think the part they like best is selecting the lollies they use to decorate the gingerbread

There are many Gingerbread recipes out there but we use this recipe from one of the girls’ cookbooks each year. The recipe is easy to follow and it makes Gingerbread that is nice and soft (just the way I like it).

Gingerbread
This recipe makes approx 25 medium size cookies or 15 large gingerbread peeps

115g butter
1 tsp baking soda
4 tablespoons golden syrup
2tsp ground ginger
175g soft brown sugar
1 beaten egg
340g plain flour

Preheat oven to 190c and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Put the butter, sugar and syrup in a saucepan on a very low heat. Stir with a wooden spoon until all ingredients have melted.

Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl and stir in all of the wet ingredients. Mix together and then knead it into a ball. Wrap in cling wrap and pop it into the fridge for 1/2hr.

Sprinkle your bench and rolling pin with flour and roll the dough until it is approx 1/2cm thick.

Use your biscuit cutters to cut out some shapes and put them onto the baking tray.

Bake the biscuits for 10 to 15 minutes until they are golden brown (keep an eye on them). Pop them on a wire rack to cool.

To decorate the biscuits you will need:

Lollies, lots and lots of lollies. This year we are using fruit sticks, mini marshmallows, M&Ms, mini M&Ms and some liquorice allsorts (sliced thinly). When the biscuits are cold, make up an icing mixture to use as the “glue” to hold the lollies to the biscuits by mixing 1 cup icing sugar mixture, 1 tsp butter and a splash of boiling water. Keep adding water until a nice consistency is achieved (you may need to add another splash during the decorating process as the mixture hardens).

We use toothpicks to spread the icing onto the biscuits but of course you can use a piping bag too. Now in years gone by I was known to hover and make sure they were doing it “just right”....of course just because my eyes think it’s just right doesn’t mean their eyes do. So because this is their gift to their cousins I sit back and enjoy an hour of quiet time while they get to create their little masterpieces.

After the icing has set the girls pop some gingerbread into a bag for each cousin and add a little Christmas touch. This year we are using clear plastic bags tied with ribbon and decorated with some holy (from Woolworths) and some little jingle bells (available from spotlight). The girls stamped this sweet image onto some white card and added a handwritten message to the back.

And ta da...one down, eight more bags to go!

Xmas Post :: Designery - Christmas Wreath tutorial

Guest Blogger - Designery

madeit.com.au/Designery

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This wreath looks great and is really simple to make. I have been meaning to do something with a roll of hessian webbing I have been hoarding and now I have a snazzy new wreath for my front door!! I absolutely love natural colours mixed with red, they look so good! I hope you enjoy the tutorial and...... of course, have a great Christmas and festive season..........with love from Designery xx

This wreath looks great and is really simple to make. I have been meaning to do something with a roll of hessian webbing I have been hoarding and now I have a snazzy new wreath for my front door!! I absolutely love natural colours mixed with red, so this is very much me!


Materials and tools needed:

• Cane wreath, approx 25cm in diameter (I found mine in an op shop and recycled it for this project)
• Hessian webbing (approx 5 metres)
• Hot glue gun
• Linen ribbon (30-40cm)
• Scissors

Instructions:

1. Using your hot glue gun, glue an end of your webbing at an angle, on to cane wreath. (Take care not to burn yourself with the hot glue!)


2. Once the glue has set (wait a few minutes for it do do so), you can start wrapping your wreath with the webbing. Wrap on angle. I used a 2cm overlap on each wrap of the webbing. Make sure you wrap quite tightly, or you will end up with lumpy bits on wreath.



3. Continue wrapping the wreath until you have double wrapped it. (I tried a single layer of wrapping, but it looked a bit thin). Snip off the remaining webbing. Using the glue gun, glue the end of the webbing at the rear of wreath.



4. Making the ribbon.
As I am completely hopeless at tying ribbons, I used a bit of a cheats way of getting a nice finish. I took a length of the leftover webbing and made two loops on the left hand side, the back loop slightly bigger than the front one. Now do the same on the other side, using the remaining webbing. Take the leftover end of webbing and wrap around the wreath and centre of your "bow", until it is secure enough to glue at rear of wreath behind the bow.






5. At the rear of the wreath (as pictured below), take a piece of linen ribbon and hot glue both ends to the back of the wreath. Wait a few minutes for glue to dry.


Your wreath is now ready to hang!

Xmas Post :: Idea Liza - All wrapped up in handmade

Guest Blogger - Idea Liza
madeit.com.au/IdeaLiza

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Hopefully by now you’ve got most of your Christmas presents sorted,
but have you wrapped them?

In this post I’ll show how to add some handmade flair to your wrapping paper, by block printing Christmas motifs onto plain paper. I’ve used brown recycled paper, but any plain paper could be used.

First up, you need some stamps. You could use store bought stamps and an ink pad, but you can also easily create your own. To make a stamp, first draw the mirror image of your desired motif onto a material like lino, rubber such as ezycut, or a half potato.

You then need to cut away the material which you don’t want to print (using a sharp knife for a potato, or lino cutting cools for lino or rubber). If you’re using a soft material like lino it can be useful to then glue the material onto a piece of wood, to give the lino more support and create a rigid stamp.


To make a stamp pad, you need a flat surface (something like the inside of a cd case), some paint (acrylic paint is fine), and a piece of absorbent material like felt. Spoon some paint onto your surface, cut a piece of material slightly bigger than the area covered in paint, and place the material over the paint. You’re now ready to start printing.

Xmas Post :: Joyfoolery - Re-usable Fabric Christmas bags

Guest Blogger - Joyfoolery
madeit.com.au/Joyfoolery

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This year I decided to finally make my own bags to wrap the Christmas presents in.

I have wanted to do this for many years, but always found myself too busy (or lacking in desire) to get it done. With four children I knew this would be a mammoth task, but also worthwhile. Here is why I love this idea:

1. It's eco friendly, lots of energy saved in not buying wrapping paper (especially when you get the fabric second hand from op shops like I managed to).


2. They look fabulous!


3. They are reusable. This means I have very little work to do next year! (I really, really like that part).


4. No filling up the rubbish bin on Boxing Day. I just need to fold the bags and store them away for next year.


5. Cost. The price of the fabric and my time was the only cost and that was a one off.

Want to make your own? There is still time, these bags are so quick and easy, especially when you make a whole heap at a time like I did. Here's how:

Choose your bag size, you can make your bags any size you want! Start off with your fabric in a square or rectangle shape.

Then fold it in half (right sides of your fabric together).

If you have an overlocker use that to sew together the bottom and one side edges. Or you can use a zigzag stitch on your sewing machine to keep the edges tidy. Stop around 2 inches from the top.

So it should be looking like this:

Now fold those edges back and zigzag them. I should note here, I used white cotton so you could see my stitches, but it would be much nicer if you matched your cotton to your fabric!

If you don't have an overlocker you can skip this next step. I overlocked the top edge.

Now you just need to fold the top edge down to make a casing for your ribbon. If you don't have an overlocker, you will want to use a zigzag stitch or fold the hem under for a neater edge. Fold down around 1.5cm depending on the width of the ribbon that you want to thread through.

That's it, looking good, only one more step now.

You can turn your bag right side out now. Pop a safety pin onto the end of your ribbon (I used bias tape that I picked up in the op shop) and thread it through.

Tie a knot in the ends of your ribbon, and you are done!

Now go and make a whole heap!

No. More than that.

That's better. Merry Christmas!

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