Panettone cooked in a breadmaker

With plenty of time to experiment, and christmas just a bit over a month away I thought I would have a go at some christmas classics. This is a panettone made in the bread machine. Instead of candied peel I used dried apricots and cranberries, partly because that's what I had in the cupboard and partly because I like them better. The end result is delicious. I ate the first slices within minutes of the machine finishing.

Christmas dinner in a tin!

This is attempt one, at a christmas dinner loaf. I'm trying to assemble all the flavours and ingredients of a christmas dinner, but that can be served sliced. In this one I covered the base of a big loaf tin with sliced parboiled parsnips and topped this with a stuffing made out of breadcrumbs, onion, chestnuts, dried cranberries and finely chopped parsnips. The next layer is thinly sliced chicken breast followed by stir fried shredded brussels sprouts, more chicken, more stuffing and another layer of parsnips. The whole creation was baked for 50 minutes and then served in slices with gravy.

The next version is going to include sausage meat and bacon and possibly bread sauce. I guess I've got about a month to get it perfect!

Great British Bake Off at home

I'm sure someone once told me that macaroons are difficult to make. I took that to be a challenge. Here is my first attempt, pistachio macaroons. The individual macaroons are made with ground almonds in a meringue mix and the buttercream inbetween is made with ground pistachios. They taste lovely. There will be more pictures when I have made new flavours.

Mary Berry, the queen of baking.

Mary Berry is undoubtably the queen of baking, and this is one of her recipes. For once, I followed the instructions exactly and the result was delicious. Tarragon is a fantastic accompaniment to chicken, and the leeks and mushrooms make a small amount of chicken go a long way.