Which is why, after a very disappointing and frustrating day of nothing going right, this package that I had purchased from Fusion Sweets Artisan Confections arrived to cheer me up. The universe had timed it perfectly. Not only was it the perfect package to brighten my day, but it arrived at a time when I had completely forgotten that I had even ordered it. Of course, this package had to be food related, but to give you a hint regarding the enormous joy that was to be found within its cardboard exterior, I must furnish you with a photograph.

Sweet, salty, supple and soft, these caramels are hands down, the best caramels I have ever tasted.

And honey, i’ve tasted many caramels.

I first came across these babies whilst trawling through etsy and was wooed by the delicious photographs, exotic flavours and sheer creativity of the sweets available. Mango, Rose and Lime Berlingots? Sure! Raspberry Lemonade Marshmallows? Yes please! French Sea Salt Butter Caramels? Oh god, I think I can die happy right now. For my first order it took me days to make up my mind but I finally settled on the French Sea Salt Butter Caramels.

Beautifully packaged, these come in an 8oz box for US$13.50

Each caramel comes studded with chunks of sea salt, smooshes of vanilla bean seeds and the most divine soft, sweet, smooth texture i’ve ever had.

So can you blame me when I went  back for more? Only to find that there was (perhaps) an even more amazing sweet on offer. Now, if you imagine that I was in uncontrollable raptures before, just think how insane I became after receiving these…

caramallows

yes, that’s right

home made marshmallows wrapped in caramel

insane in the brain.

These too are ridiculously soft with a deliciously yielding marshmallow centre as well as smooth, velvety caramel outer layer.

The Vanilla Caramallows come in a box of 10 pieces for US$13.00

And you thought I was done there didn’t you? But surely you know me well enough by now to know that that could not possibly be true. And if you were astute enough to assume that then you would be correct. But again, how could you blame me? When I was faced with this…

Spanish Hot Chocolate Mix with a range of home made marshmallows (US$10.99)

Oh. My. God.

Deliciously rich hot chocolate with chunks of dark chocolate scattered through to give it that extra chocolate kick

This is not for the faint hearted

but the addition of some cutely named ‘not so boring vanilla bean marshmallows’ will surely warm the cockles of your heart

I would say that pink pyjamas are optional, but really, who am I kidding?

I can’t wait to try all the different flavours of these marshmallows!

Kay is an attentive and communicative seller, always answering my questions quickly and kindly. After hearing my dismay at the high shipping cost, she was very willing to suggest options which would allow for a reduced price, although I still shake my fist at the US postal service for imposing such ridiculous shipping charges. Overall, purchasing from Kay is an extremely pleasant experience and, having ordered and received several packages from her now I can say that her sweets are consistently top notch quality.

So, my lovelies, what is your all time favourite sweet? And can you think of something as amazing as a caramel wrapped marshmallow? I’m dying to hear!

All products were paid for by me and this review was unsolicited by the seller.

lime syrup cakes

can you blame me? Now if you’re feeling like you’ve got a bit of deja vu, then you wouldn’t be too far off. I did post the CWA Lime Cake way back in 2010 when I began this blog. But with the second birthday of this little blog of mine swinging round, I thought i’d bring back my old favourite but with a little delicious tweak.

I saw this recipe on the beautiful Kiki’s blog after i’d scored a bag of limes ridiculously cheaply. Apart from making a Key Lime Pie and some watermelon, lychee and lime cocktails, Lime Syrup Cake was the perfect way to use these babies up. And the Women’s Weekly recipe that Kiki used intrigued me with its addition of ricotta. What I love about the CWA recipe is the beautiful light buttery texture of the cake as well as the lovely limey syrup left at the bottom. This recipe is much more dense but infinitely soft and oh-so-lime-syrupy!

I used Greek Style Yoghurt instead of ricotta because I couldn’t get my lazy ass to the shops to buy some. Oops.

But look at the cute tea cosy behind it!

If you’re currently suffering from the chilly turn in Sydney, I’m sure this hot, fresh out of the oven cake will warm you up

The super moistness and limeness of this cake comes from a little lime in the batter but mostly the lime syrup trickled over the top while it is still warm.

I recently discovered Weis Vanilla Bean Icecream. This has to be hands down the best vanilla ice-cream i’ve had so far. A few scoops of this baby cuts through the lime if you’re not such a fan of the sour.

mmmmmmmmmmmm

and an action shot, just so you can feel jealous. But better than feeling jealous, you can go get some limes and make this freakin cake! You won’t be disappointed!

So, my lovelies, do you love limes? And what do you like to eat to keep away these winter chills that are currently invading Sydney?

Lime Syrup Cake – Adapted from The Australian Women’s Weekly

Cake Ingredients

200g butter

1 tablespoon lime zest

1 cup (220g) caster sugar

3 eggs, separated

250g greek yoghurt

1/2 cup (125ml) milk

1 1/2 cups (225g) self raising flour

Syrup Ingredients

1/3 cup (80ml) lime juice

1/4 cup (60ml) water

2/3 cup caster sugar

Method

Preheat oven to 180deg (160deg if fan forced). Grease a 20cm bundt pan well with extra melted butter.

1. Beat butter, rind and sugar in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy

2. Beat in egg yolks, yoghurt and milk

3. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in sifted flour.

4. Beat egg whites in a small bowl until soft peaks form

5. Fold into batter in two batches then pour into a greased 20cm bundt pan. Bake on 160 degrees for 40-50 mins. Check regularly as mine was truly cooked by then

6. Turn cake out onto a wire rack and cool for 5 mins before covering in syrup

Lime Syrup Method

1. During the last 10 mins of the cake baking, begin making your syrup

2. Stir the lime juice, water and sugar in a saucepan over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil.

3. Boil uncovered for 10 mins, keeping a careful eye on it! Don’t let it caramelise! In the mean time, stab your cake all over it’s surface with a skewer to help the syrup absorb

4. When the syrup has thickened a little, take the pan off the heat and pour gently over your cake.

It started with a strange anomaly with the bourke st bakery flourless chocolate cake.

I only had one piece. Yes, you read that right. One.

No matter, no worries, all things must pass. Right?

Wrong.

Out of all these easter goodies from my beautiful students, I just didn’t feel like eating much.

Even my favourite Lindt bunnies seemed to have lost their jingly allure.

so I put these cute bunnies on top of some cupcakes to take to the S family for easter.

Didn’t actually eat any. Despite them being super cute.

I rallied a little with some delicious easter afternoon tea at the Observatory Hotel

Which was, as always, fantastic.

Brilliant service, lovely food, a vast array of tea and great ambiance, I cannot recommend them highly enough.

I also gave myself an easter mani with Bloom ‘Corfu’ and OPI ‘Teenage Dream’. I thought it made them reminiscent of the shimmery easter egg foil and might induce some chocolate appetite.

But I still had many eggs left over. So I decided that I had to get baking and sort myself out.

Which led me to these Easter Egg Brownie Bites. Perhaps one of the easiest recipes ever.

And it’s therapeutic! Sorry Mr Bunny, but you had to go.

After all, perhaps all I needed to do to appease the chocolate gods and restore me to health was a sacrifice?

It is a one bowl recipe and doesn’t even require a mixer of any sort! Easy!

Hide your eggs in the brownie batter (and relieve your lovely weekend memories of easter eggs hunts!)

then bake, bake, bake, my pretties!

Just 12 minutes is all it takes

And then enjoy the warm, gooey, melty centre.

Good lord, these are tasty and last for days as all they need to restore gooey-ness is to be nuked for 30 seconds in the microwave. And, even better, they used up two packets of small easter eggs and make great gifts for morning/afternoon teas.

So, my lovelies, now that I have helped you with your easter egg excess, are you able to help me with my predicament? Do I just need to bite the bullet and eat all the chocolate in order to re-store my factory settings? This blog has documented my love of chocolate over the last two years and I refuse to believe that this is a permanent state of nonchalance re: chocolate. Send me your solutions!

Easter Egg Brownie Bites – Adapted from this recipe from taste.com

Ingredients

150g unsalted butter

100g dark choc easter eggs

100g Lindt milk chocolate easter bunny, chopped.

1 packet mars bar easter eggs

1 packet malteser easter eggs

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 cup plain flour

2 eggs, lightly beaten

Method

1. lightly grease your mini muffin pan (1 1/2 tbsp capacity) and heat your oven to 160 degrees celsius (fan forced)

2. place butter, dark chocolate eggs and chopped up bunny into a microwave safe bowl and nuke them all on 50% power for 2 mins. Make sure that you pause every 30 seconds to stir your chocolate around, you don’t want to burn it!

3. Stir in sugar and leave to cool slightly

4. mix in the flour then eggs making sure that you incorporate each ingredient properly

5. spoon the mix into your muffin pan. As there is no rising agent in this mix you can safely fill them almost to the top of the hole, just remember that some of the batter will be displaced by the egg when you insert it

6. unwrap your easter eggs and push them into the centre of each hole making sure to cover the top of the egg with batter

7. bake for 12 mins

8. eat while still warm!

Note: these will store for a few days if left in an airtight container. If you want to heat them up again (which I highly recommend) you just need to pop them under the grill for a few mins or put them in the microwave for 30 seconds

So it might surprise you to know that for the last term i’ve been getting up half an hour earlier than usual in order to do some much needed exercise. As much as I love baking, I was not loving the squishy unable-to-fit-into-my-clothes feeling. Those of you who are fellow not-morning people will attest that the lure of warm sheets and sweet dreams often counteracts any good intentions re: exercise so I needed to come up with some strategies to tumble me willingly (or unwillingly) out of bed.

Setting three separate alarms was a good start

Opening my curtains so that the sun shone on my face was another good one

But I think the most effective was knowing I had enough time for a delicious breakfast

like this one!

After not being able to find any cereals in the supermarket that weren’t loaded with sugar but actually tasted nice, I decided to make my own granola. After my morning exercise, I sprinkle some of this onto some vanilla yoghurt and then, if i’m super organised (or motivated) I top it off with some stewed rhubarb. Because how delicious is rhubarb!

I started with the rhubarb stewing after I had some rhubarb stalks left over from a cake I made. There were too many precious ruby stems to throw away, yet not enough to make another cake or tart. So I chopped the stems up into 2 inch lengths and whacked them into a saucepan along with one split and de-seeded vanilla bean and two tablespoons of caster sugar. I think that if you really wanted you could omit the sugar to make it healthier, but I quite enjoy the extra sweetness to balance out the tartness of the rhubarb.

it really is as simple as that. Whack it all together over a medium heat

watch the sugar dissolve

and marvel at all the pretty colours!

then simmer for 20 mins or until rhubarb is tender and all the sugar is dissolved.

As the mornings are becoming chilly. you could even reheat the rhubarb before adding it to your breakfast if you need a little bit of warmth. The other thing that you could do is to add warm milk instead of yoghurt then add your warmed up fruit. Either way, this is certainly a breakfast to get out of bed for!

So, my lovelies, are you a morning person? Or do you find yourself similarly cocooned in the warmth of your blankets and unable to wrench yourself free to begin the day?

Stewed Rhubarb

Ingredients

3 stalks of rhubarb (you can increase the quantities if you want to make a bigger batch, just whack in an extra vanilla bean and a little more sugar)

2 tbsp caster sugar

1 vanilla bean, split and de-seeded

Method

1. Wash and trim your rhubarb stalks, then chop each stalk into 2 inch long pieces

2. Place rhubarb in a small saucepan along with sugar and the vanilla bean and seeds

3. Place saucepan over a medium heat and stir occasionally for 20 mins or until rhubarb is tender and the sugar has dissolved

4. Remove saucepan from heat, remove vanilla bean and leave to cool

5. Spoon rhubarb and sauce over cereal or ice-cream and store the rest of your fruit in an airtight container in the fridge for up to two weeks

I like to make ‘to do’ lists. I love the sense of achievement that you get when you can cross off an item. However, while I might be organised enough to make these lists, more often than not I will lose them. Counter productive you might think, but… well, yes it is mostly counter productive. Particularly when these lists resurface months later and I realise that I STILL have not completed most of the tasks written there. This blog would be exhibit A.

However, I was very good with my list making before Christmas. Don’t believe me? Well, these cookies are proof, doubters! Christmas was more hectic than usual last year so I had to be super organised to get everything done. In particular my cooking list seemed to breed overnight as I over committed myself for dinners, parties, Kris Kringle gifts, co worker gifts etc. This particular recipe from the December issue of the Donna Hay Magazine was a godsend as it was simple to make, easy to assemble and tasted fabulous. In fact, I was so taken with it that I decided to make a KK gift of cookies and hot chocolate with all the cookies coming from that issue. I will post the other two recipes shortly, but thought I would start with arguably the most tasty (or at least most calorific!)

Cookies and hot chocolate!

All you need to do is whack your butter and sugars all together in your mixer

mix in the flour and roll it all flat

cut your dough into circles and bake

until lightly golden – the recipe says 8-10 mins, I barely needed 7 mins in my oven

pipe the caramel onto your cooled biscuit

and sandwich together

Easy peasy! And you can add a little sprinkle of salt to the caramel before sandwiching for more of a salted caramel shortbread feel. I’ve made these cookies several times since Christmas and they have always gone down well. Easy to make, easy to store, the only thing you need to worry about is rolling your dough too thin, or eating them all in one sitting!

So, lovely reader, are you a procrastinator? Or have you figured out how to get stuff done? And if you’re the latter, can you please let me in on the secret? (Writing this post has been on my weekly ‘to do’ list since January. Go figure.

Caramel Shortbread Cookies – From Donna Hay Magazine

Ingredients

150g butter

1/3 cup (55g) icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cup (225g) plain flour

2 tbsp cornflour

2/3 cup (200g) dulce de leche (you can also use the Nestle Top N Fill sold in supermarkets in Australia or your own caramel made from condensed milk)

Method

1. Place the butter, sugar and vanilla in a mixer and beat for 8-10 mins or until pale and creamy

2. add the flour and cornflour and mix until a smooth dough forms

3. Roll the dough out (5mm thick) between two sheets of baking paper and place in the fridge for around 30 mins

4. using a 4.5 cm round cookie cutter, cut our your cookies and transfer the dough to a a baking tray

5. bake at 180 degrees celsius for 6-7 mins and check to see if they are done. If not, continue cooking for another few minutes keeping a close eye on these babies!

6. cool cookies on a wire rack

7. Pipe caramel onto half the cookies and sandwich with the remaining ones

Oh god. I first had this dessert at a wonderful gelato bar in Crows Nest called Bravo. I admit that it is not the most elegant dessert on the face of the earth but It was so delicious that an evening trip to Bravo for some gelato has become a semi regular occurrence. But alas, sometimes I am just too tired or too plain lazy to make the drive. Therefore, it has become necessary for me to be able to recreate this dessert at home.

While Bravo make their own amazing gelato, it was more convenient to get my gelato from the another amazing store: Pure Gelato which have their factory in Croydon Park. As I was in the area, I picked up a tub of chocolate gelato. It took all my willpower not to demolish it on the drive home!

Delicious! This gelato is consistently creamy, fresh and full of flavour. I highly recommend it!

I hit a few snags when making the crepes. I’m more of a pancakes kinda girl so I don’t think i’ve ever actually made crepes before. After finding a simple recipe on taste.com I cracked the frying pan out and got to it.

mmmmmm batter…

co ordinated I am not.

No one will argue with that.

But I am a fast learner!

soon I had a nice stack of crepes

(ok the one on the top was really thick but as we have already established, I am pretty lazy and this was the last bit of batter)

then all you need to do is wrap the mars bars in the crepes

times two

snug as a bug in a rug!

Then you just need to nuke them in the microwave for about 40 seconds (make sure you put the heat on medium or 50%) to make the mars bars nice and melty

Then scoop yo icecream and cover in chocolate sauce!

I used Hersheys topping

mmmmmm gooey caramel

I have to admit that before settling on this dish, I had a bit of idea overload for his blog hop. Death By Chocolate should be so easy but everything I thought of was either not chocolatey enough, or so chocolatey that I would never be able to eat it without developing diabetes right there and then. But this baby is just on the right side of decadent to make it actually eatable. Although you may fall into a sugar coma. You have been warned!

Mars Bar Crepes with Chocolate Gelato Recipe

Ingredients

2 crepes

2 normal sized mars bars

1 scoop chocolate icecream/gelato

Chocolate Sauce

Crepe Recipe

Crepe recipe from taste.com can be found here you only need two good crepes for each serving, and they don’t need to be huge, just big enough to wrap your mars bars in

Assembly

1. Wrap each mars bar in a crepe making sure that they are fully wrapped

2. Nuke them in the microwave for roughly 40 seconds at medium heat (or 50%)

3. Scoop out one scoop of icecream and place on top

4. Cover liberally with chocolate sauce

This post was part of the Death By Chocolate Sweet Adventures Blog Hop kindly hosted by The Hungry Australian

I hate being late. Considering my utter disorganisation in every other area of my life, this might seem like a strange dislike, but there you go. I don’t mind so much when other people are late, but I loathe arriving somewhere after an event has already begun or after everyone has already arrived. I would much rather get somewhere early and wait, calm and composed and relaxed.

But, alas, despite my best intentions for this post, I am several days late for the newest Sweet Adventures Blog Hop. Hopefully, this is a case of ‘better late than never’?

I love gingerbread and the way it makes the house smell like Christmas when it’s baking in the oven. I love the idea of making gingerbread houses, but I always forget how fiddly they are! Gingerbread houses are the sucker punch of baking. You get through making, chilling, rolling, cutting and baking the dough no worries. You enjoy it, the house smells nice, you sneak a bit of gingerbread dough while you’re at it and then you’re in a happy place. Until it comes time for assembly. Then BAM it all falls apart. Often literally.

I made my dough fine, thanks to the spiffy new Kitchenaid food processor

I chilled, rolled and baked fine

even the royal icing was working fine

but then my pink food colouring had mysteriously turned red (elves? i’m looking at you.)

and sliding walls necessitated impromptu scaffolding.

An engineer was consulted before lowering the roof on

Decorating supplies were gathered. And, not too long after, we had a

complete house!

An all the reindeer gathered round.

Here’s a side view. I think the world would be a better place if everyone’s guttering were made of musk sticks and lemon sherbert. Who could be cranky and late then?

This post was part of the Sweet Adventures Festive Favourites Blog Hop kindly hosted by 84th&3rd. 

Gingerbread House Recipe – Taken from the Australian Women’s Weekly Cook

Ingredients

4 1/2 cups (675g) self raising flour

3 tsps ground ginger

2 tsps ground cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ground nutmeg

185g butter, chopped

1 cup (220g) firmly packed dark brown sugar

1/2 cup (180g) treacle (I substituted golden syrup as I had no treacle and it worked fine)

2 eggs beaten lightly

assorted lollies for decorating

Method

1. Mix flour, spice and butter in a food processor until mix is crumbly

2. Add sugar, treacle and enough egg for the mixture to just combine

3. turn dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth

4. Wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for 1 hour

5. Roll out your dough to 5mm thick and cut out according to your pattern

6. Cook in the oven at 160 degrees celsius (fan forced) for 12 minutes or until they are just firm and golden

7. You will probably have excess dough so you can churn out a few trees or g-bread men if you like

8. Pipe some royal icing onto the corners of each piece in order to attach walls and roof. You may need to use some scaffolding to hold pieces in place while the icing dries. Leave undecorated house overnight to dry before decorating.

9. Secure decorations to the house by using extra royal icing

Royal Icing Recipe

Ingredients

2 egg whites

3 cups icing sugar (480g)

Method

1. Mix the egg whites lightly until foamy

2. Whisk in the icing sugar until a stiff icing is formed.

3. Decorate!

Why do you move so quickly? Only yesterday it was weeks until Christmas and today I wake up to find that there are only three more sleeps! Slow down loser.

Love, Katie.

Anyone else wondering where all that time went? I like to think that i’m pretty organised when it comes to Christmas (laugh all you want people, but despite my lack of organisation throughout the year I do get my Christmas shopping done super early). But it’s not the shopping that has fazed me this year, rather its all the co ordination of the cooking, cleaning, seeing friends etc. At the moment i’m procrastinating before working up the energy to decorate my gingerbread house (post to come!) and cook my potato salad for a Christmas Party tomorrow. Of course, in the interim I thought I would have a crack at another quick and easy edible Christmas gift, you know, in case you aren’t quite as organised in the shopping department as I am. (Let me take this moment to gloat because, i’m clearly behind throughout the year. Give me this one!)

I saw this recipe for Hot Cocoa at My Baking Addiction (another find through Twitter. Loving that!) and thought that this would be a great way to use up some sweet little jars I bought, and it would make great Christmas gifts. PLUS it meant that I could buy marshmallows, because who doesn’t have marshmallows all the time with their hot chocolate? I thought I would make it a little more christmassy by adding in some cinnamon and I reduced the amount that I made, but otherwise the recipe was great as it was.

marshmallowwwwssssss…..

all you need to do is sift all the ingredients together. I sifted mine a few times to get the sugar really fine otherwise you’re left with white specks throughout your mix

then bottle!

then repeat!

p.s. how cute are these jars? $2.5o from a little reject shop style store. Make sure that you wash them thoroughly in hot soapy water though.

If you are totally stuck for ideas this Christmas, I would recommend this. Who doesn’t like hot chocolate? And why would you be friends with someone who doesn’t like hot chocolate? I’m pretty sure thats not normal.

If you want to view the original recipe you can find it here.

Otherwise,

Christmas Hot Chocolate Mix – yield is roughly 2 and 3/4 cups

Ingredients

1 cup icing sugar (powdered sugar or confectioners sugar)

1/2 cup cocoa powder (dutch processed is best)

1 1/4 cup powdered milk

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cornflour

1 tsp cinnamon (add more according to your taste)

Method

1. Mix all ingredients together and sift several times. The more times you sift, the finer your mix will be.

You could add more or different spices according to what you like or what your giftee would like. Be creative!

2. Pour into jars and seal

3. To make the hot chocolate, add to hot milk or water and stir thoroughly

Yes, I hear you saying “but Katie, we already knew that”. But did you know that im also the other kind of twit?

Thats right peeps, i’ve jumped on the Twitter bandwagon and you can follow me by clicking on the little button in the sidebar to the right or by following @atrueloveofmine

Im not a big fan of social media. Never have been. I resisted facebook until it became absolutely necessary to get an account and I have always been vocal about my dislike for twitter. But, things change and after some gentle nudging from friends at work (thanks guys!) I decided to dip my toe in the twitter pool. And I was not disappointed! As well as broadening my horizons and perspective, twitter is also responsible for broadening my waistline with a plethora of delicious recipes appearing regularly in my feed. One by the lovely Jennifer at Delicieux that particularly caught my eye was that for Wicked Chocolate Orange Cookies.

I had to go to an impromptu evening meeting where I needed to bring a plate of food. And I was really hungry. A cake was out because I wouldn’t be able to sneak a piece without anybody noticing, but cookies? These ones sounded like just the ticket. A very easy, straightforward and decadently chocolaty recipe, these babies turned out so well that I knocked up another batch a few weeks later to give as christmas gifts.

And it allowed me to vent my stress and frustration accumulated during the year

Chop chop!

While the final product looked suspiciously like many other cookies i’ve made before such as Nigella Lawson’s Ultimate Chocolate Cookie, the difference was in the delicious orange that permeated.

Are there any flavours in the world that go together as well as chocolate and orange? I highly doubt it! And if there are, please send your suggestions my way!

So, while it is extremely tempting to keep all the delicious cookies for yourself, in the spirit of the season these make excellent christmas gifts. Wrap them up in some cellophane or a small box and someone will love you forever!

You can find the recipe here at Delicieux 

 So, my lovelies, can you suggest any other whiz bang flavour combos to try? I’m much more of a sweets person (clearly!) but am open to savoury suggestions as well.

And before you go, have you entered the Christmas Giveaway yet? Entries close on Monday so you really should get your skates on!

So its two weeks until Christmas and i’m hoping that you’ve started thinking about your Christmas shopping. Have you made your list and checked it twice? Or do you still have names bouncing around in your brain like a gaggle of five year olds on a jumping castle? Either way, it’s time to get your skates on and fill up that space beneath the tree. In case you’re trapped inside by the unseasonable Sydney weather, or you just can’t be bothered to go to the shops, I thought I would bring you a few suggestions of home made gifts that you can whip up to give your loved ones.

All these gifts were made from recipes in the fabulous book Gifts from the Kitchen: 100 Irresistible Homemade Presents for Every Occasion by Annie Rigg.  I have made so many of these recipes for gifts throughout the year and recently gifted some of the ones below to co workers for Christmas. (There are a few more suggestions to come in the next few days so make sure that you check back!) But for now, lets recap on some of the ideas of 2010:

1. If you’re shopping for a high tea loving lady, can I suggest some sweet little novelty sugar cubes like these

2. Perhaps the more savoury, down to earth man would like some home made honey wholegrain mustard?

3. Anyone at all would LOVE some Strawberry and Vanilla Conserve (particularly with the delicious strawberries around at the moment)

4. And the sci fi fan in your life might appreciate some of the above jam with a twist. A GRAVITY DEFYING twist. Just make the recipe as above but reduce the jam a little more and allow the jam to cool completely while keeping the jar inverted. When you flip it back the right way up, the jam will remain at the top. Gravity defying I tell you!

See!

5. Finally, if you have a bit of a baker/cook/crafter in your collection of giftees, perhaps they would like a copy of Gifts from the Kitchen: 100 Irresistible Homemade Presents for Every Occasion by Annie Rigg? I have two of these fabulous books to give away just in time for Christmas! (Or you could keep it and cook yourself some lovely treats. Doesn’t everyone buy themselves a gift at Christmas?)

In order to enter the competition, all you need to do is leave a comment below telling me what home made gift you have received or would like to receive for Christmas. Entries will close at 5pm (Sydney time) Monday 19th December and the two winners will be chosen at random and contacted via email. The prizes will be mailed via express post already gift wrapped ready for giving! Please make sure that you include your email in your comment and if you are a lucky winner, please reply to my email for mailing directions asap so that these will arrive in time for Christmas. Due to time and shipping constraints, entries are limited to Australian residents.

Good luck! 

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