I adapted this from a recipe found on my old friend, the BBC GoodFood website, and, having never made a swiss-roll/roulade before, it worked perfectly.

(At this juncture, I have to tell you one of the most hilarious stories involving swiss-rolls: my friend Sue (not to be confused with crafty-Susan) went looking for a swiss-roll tin. When the shop assistant produced the shallow flat tray for same, Susan said “oh, no, I’m making a swiss-roll, you know the ones that look like a roll; the tin needs to be a spiral shape”  !!!!!!!!! I think of Sue everytime I see a swiss-roll)

Ingredients:

100g caster sugar plus extra for turning out the roulade

5 eggs

25g self-raising flour

½ tsp baking powder

40g cocoa

50g ground almonds

For filling:

Fudge sauce (recipe here)

Frosting:

100gms chocolate

50gms butter

dash of cream

Heat the oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5. Line and butter a (flat!!!!!) 30cm Swiss roll tin, dust with caster sugar and shake out any excess.

Beat the eggs and sugar together until they are pale and thick enough to leave a trail when you lift out the whisk – they should have trebled in volume. This will take about 10 minutes, so use a counter-top electric mixer if you have one.

Fold the dry, sieved ingredients into the egg mix using a large metal spoon, being careful not to knock out too much air. Spoon carefully into the tin and spread out to the corners.

Bake for 12 minutes or until the cake feels firm to the touch. Flip out onto a sheet of baking parchment scattered with caster sugar.

Peel off the backing paper, then roll up the roulade lengthways, using the paper to help you. Leave to cool completely.

When ready to assemble, melt chocolate, butter and cream. Unroll the roulade until flat (It will crack and may break a little, but once the frosting is on top no-one will be the wiser)

Spread the fudge sauce on the cake and, usng the paper agin, re-roll it. When the frosting is ready, spread thickly with a spatula, and, if you like, mark it with a fork to look like the typical Christmas Log. 

Decorate with a sprig of holly, and, as ever, consume greedily with lashings of (double) cream or an excellent ice-cream!

We have been inundated with visitors and last minute things to do (let me put it like this: my cards will be late, late, late and many hand-delivered this year!!), so the shortbread I was to post today didn’t get photographed…

So I decided to link to a few Advent crafty things I made last year.

Our kitchen this Advent Eve…

And the papercut village, I made a tutorial for the papercut church here

Christmas baubles: So easy and a great last minute Christmas Eve craft for kiddies and adults alike!

Gorgeous tea-light holders: I can’t have enough of these… the tutorial here

Or a spot of baking… Nothing like brown bread for tea with meringues after!! 

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve… our last day of Craft♥Advent: see you then!

Mincemeat ”Parcels”

(These are also very delicious made with apple, sprinkled with sugar… oh, yum)

For the pastry:

(I always make a lot of pastry and keep it wrapped in the fridge- keeping it chilled does wonders for pastry)

250 gms cold butter, cubed

500 gms flour

ice-cold water

In the food processor I whizz up the butter and flour until like coarse breadcrumbs (you can also do this by hand of course  )

very slowly drip in the water until it just comes together. Keeping it in the bowl, I cover it with buttered paper and leave it in the fridge for at least an hour (It keeps for up to a week)

The Parcels:

Roll the pastry out thinly, then cut out circles (I used a lovely wide coffee cup)

Into the centre of each circle I put a teaspoon of mincemeat or finely chopped apple (if using apple, sprinkle with sugar), wet half the edges of the pastry circles, fold over the circle and with a fork, press down all along the edge. Spike the top with the fork and into a hot oven for 15 minutes. Enjoy hot!!

In a large saucepan (I have made this in a slow cooker also and it worked beautifully),

Put 1 litre of cranberry, orange and apple juice. To this, add 4 cinnamon sticks, a small fist of cloves, sliced orange and star anise. Cook slowly for several hours until you have a fragrant, non alcoholic warm drink with all the scents and flavours of of the season.

Enjoy!

Today, and tomorrows crafts have been a bit of a disaster in ways… I made fudge today which I poured into a jar a while ago… and it is now “Fudge Sauce” (delicious nonetheless)

So…. the recipe to make fudge sauce, is, in essence, the same recipe, except without the fudge getting hard and fudge-y.

In the name of research, my children have tried the fudge sauce with many accompaniments and have pronounced it

“deeee-licious” on… anything, really.

What you need:

1 can of “Carnation Caramel” (400 gms)

300 mls milk

180gms butter

1kg of granulated sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

(If  thought this would harden, I would say “line a tin with parchment”, but I would just get 5-6 jars into the oven on a low heat to sterilize them instead)

Put the ingredients into a heavy-bottomed saucepan, heating gently till the sugar has dissolved.

Raise the heat and boil rapidly for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally to stop it sticking,  then plunge into a basin of cold water so it doesn’t cook further and beat with an electric whisk for 2 minutes.

Pour into readied jars and enjoy with… anything!!