Christmas Countdown: Days 9/10: Easy Victoria Sponge

For those fussy people who don't like christmas cake... There is always one....

So.....

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius or gas mark 4.

Cream 225g of butter with 225g of caster sugar until paler and fluffy. Standard.

Add 4 eggs bit by bit alternating with half of 225g of self-raising flour. eggs. bit of flour. eggs. bit of flour. Repeat.

Then stir in 2 tsps of vanilla extract. (to make it more Christmassy, you could use cinnamon instead)

Fold in the rest of the self-raising flour, incorporating as much air as possible.

If the mixture is too stiff add some milk.

Put half the cake mix in one greased tin and the other half in the other greased tin.

Bake for around 30 mins. Or until golden brown.

To test if the cake is cooked, a knife should come out clean when stabbed in the top and bounce back when tapped gently on the top.

Sandwich the cakes together, with cream, jam, or in summer fresh fruit... perhaps not at Christmas...

Then ice festively!

Christmas Countdown: Days 6/7/8: Christmas Tree Biscuits Recipe

No posts for a few days, blogging every day is harder than I expected it to be...

Anyway these are very easy, delicious biscuits which are especially good around Christmas as they are full of spices. Very simple dough, no resting required and a quick bake.

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees fan and grease a couple of baking trays.

Cream 125g of butter and 125g of caster sugar together. Once creamed add one egg. 

Then mix in 225g of plain flour and 2 teaspoons of mixed spice in to the mixture.

Then make in to a dough, dust a surface and rolling pin with flour and then roll the dough in to a thin sheet. 

Cut in to shapes and place on baking trays. As these biscuits can be used for Christmas tree decorations just cut a small hole in to the top of the shape so that a ribbon can be pushed through.

Bake for 10 -15 mins or until golden brown.

Leave them to cool and then decorate as you wish. 

I have just splattered the biscuits with different coloured icing to make it even quicker, obviously you can spend more time on them...

See, bit messy, but simple.

Christmas Countdown: Day 5: Quick note to say...

REMEMBER TO KEEP FEEDING YOU CHRISTMAS CAKE WITH YOUR LIQUOR OF CHOICE!

(Rubbish post I know, but I have nothing else to say!)