Christmas ~ a time for celebrating the birth of Christ, a time to gather with family, a time to share the wonders of a white Christmas or for those in the Southern Hemisphere, the wonders of shrimp on a barbie.
But for me, too far from home and having no such religious inclination (I’m busy enough what with my worship of all things edible and spend Sunday mornings eating not praying), Christmas doesn’t appeal to me in the same way as it does some others ~ as a highly spiritual and loving time when families far and wide gather to eat turkey (or tofurkey as it may be in this day and age) and drink eggnog. Or vodka.
For me, Christmas is an excuse. An excuse to eat, cook, bake and sleep in. And further more, it’s an excuse to wear green and red at the same time because damned if I’m gonna be caught wearing that at any other day of the year.
This year’s festive joy saw me bake a glorious little bundle of Christmas choc chip cookies, the “Christmassy-ness” being green & red m&ms of course. I couldn’t actually find bags of green & red m&ms but in all honesty did I actually look?
Well, uh, no.
Because it was infinitely more fun to buy regular bags of m&ms and separate all the green & red ones, and now oh look! I have whole bowl full of brown, blue, orange and yellow m&ms which just have to be eaten. Darn.
I also finally hauled my butt into the new Hummingbird Bakery store in Soho, and bought a couple of little Christmas cupcakes.
Are they just to die for or what? I mean, honestly.
I did contemplate making a batch of red velvet cupcakes myself. In fact, in all my brilliance I thought about making 6 red cupcakes and 6 green ones. But green cupcakes? Maybe green tea cupcakes. Two different recipes plus cookies on Christmas day? Could I really be bothered?
Clearly not.
Hummingbird Bakery to the rescue. Amen.
I also got a few last minute treats for Christmas, including a set of fountain candles which um, I have no idea when I’m going to use these. They may well be stuck into the roast duck my friend Linh is cooking tonight, we’ll see.
I also have a little Belgian white chocolate girl/snowman/looks-like-a-fruity-gingerbread-man thing. And Panu added to my collection of Christmas deliciousness last night with a some treats from Hotel Chocolat ~ chocolate cups piped full of praline, textured with caramelised nut pieces and topped with a lone hazelnut.
I mean, really, it’s not like I need an excuse to eat all this crap. But don’t you feel less guilty at Christmas time? Don’t tell me you’ve not uttered “oh all right, it is Christmas after all” before devouring your second serve of pudding.
Plus I’m sure that being his birthday party and all that, our man Jesus will extend his “forgive all sins” get-out-of-jail-free card to food gluttony. Just for today.
So eat! Enjoy! Merry Christmas! xx
| m&m chocolate chip cookies |
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| 125 grams unsalted butter at room temperature 185 grams brown sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla essense 1 x egg 1 Tablespoon milk 215 grams plain flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 250 grams chocolate chips (or m&ms) |
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| Makes 20 cookies. |