Friday, 6 January 2012

My Christmas Gift Bags

Even if I do say so myself, my Christmas gift bags were a great success. Not only were my family and close friends appreciative of the thought and time taken to make the bags, but they couldn't stop raving about my cooking. Mission accomplished in my book :)



In addition to the little christmas fruit cakes I had cooked earlier, I also made some traditional shortbread which my family ate like a bag of potato chips - by the handful and they couldn't stop eating it. I think I made three batches just for them!


Perhaps the most popular item was my White Christmas. I've been making this since I was about 12 and it's the easiest thing to make. I'm not exaggerating when I say that every person who I watched take their first mouthful paused and closed their eyes enjoying the taste. 


White Christmas funnily enough contains rice bubbles and like its famous relative, chocolate crackles, also contains copha which is melted to bind all the dry ingredients together. However unlike chocolate crackles, White Christmas does not contain chocolate (although I do spread a layer of white chocolate on top of the slice once it's set - my personal touch). In traditional Christmas style, White Christmas contains mixed dried fruit, glace cherries and coconut. Milk powder is added to give an extra creamy taste and icing sugar for extra sweetness plus it also helps the mixture to set. Press the mix into the mould and set in the fridge for a couple of hours, then cut into squares.


I also made rum balls, a classic christmas treat. For a special touch I tossed the rum balls in three different coatings: chocolate sprinkles, coconut, and biscuit crumbs. The trio of rum balls looked impressive when wrapped in cellophane, with the chocolate coated, coconut coated, and biscuit coated balls looking rather colourful. My rum balls were extra 'rummy', I went a bit heavy handed with the rum but they tasted good ;)



And last but not least, I made salted caramel fudge. This one was my personal favourite. Very rich, only a small portion was needed at a time, and yet it was very addictive. This fudge went spectacularly with a cup of coffee. My tip was to take a bite of fudge, a sip of coffee and then let the coffee melt the fudge in my mouth. Yum!





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