WOW: Christmas Baking

WOW = WIPs On Wednesdays

You'll forgive me for being late in posting the WIP today. Usually I like to put up my post early in the morning. But this morning today I have been much too preoccupied with...

Christmas Baking!

My DDs and I have been hard at work because we are about to experience a few days of 30c over here and that's simply too hot to bake. So we have been baking ourselves busy to get everything done so it can be packed away and kept cool until Christmas Eve.

Here's the effort so far:

It's not a celebration without Peaches on a plate

(You can find the recipe here)

And it's not Christmas without Potica either...

(recipe here)

Actually this my DDs first potica made without my guidance so we had it cut it to inspect it and assess it over coffee ( verdict? a good first effort). Usually you would let your Potica rest at least a day - but we're on a schedule here!

This mint slice is so easy, it doesn't even have a recipe.

You simply wizz up biscuit into crumbs in a food processor and add half a block of chocolate so they crumb together. Then press this mixture into the base of a spring tin lined with grease paper. Bake in a 180-c oven for 15 minutes or until golden. The chocolate melts and sets the biscuit.

Then mix 5 cups of icing sugar with 2 tablespoons boiling water and peppermint essence to taste. The sugar should be smooth and thick - almost too thick to stir - custard like. Pour this over the biscuit base. Put in the fridge to set. Melt the rest of the chocolate and spread over the cold set icing sugar.

Release from from tin and slice thinly (or not so thinly as we opted for below).

These apricots balls don't have a recipe either. Using your food processor, you simply throw in 1 cup almonds, 1 cup dried apricots, zest of 1 lemon, juice of that lemon, and 1 tin of condensed milk (375mls). You know it's done when the blades of the processor stop turning! Then you roll teaspoon amounts into round balls and roll in shredded coconut. Really you could use any dried fruit and nut combo and we might even make it with cranberries as we have a lot of those.

What do you think these are?

they're walls to a gingerbread house my DDs are making

and these are the 'stained glass' windows !

I will post more pics as they progress with their little house.

And now, on the wednesday before Christmas, it really is my last opportunity to tidy up my sewing room (I've been doing this in segments all week). So with my DDs in the kitchen, I had better get on with it!