My First Ever Trifle

We put a trifle bowl on our wedding list, so I thought our Christmas Pizza get together was the perfect opportunity to finally use it. There was a lot of discussion about whether a trifle should have jelly in it. It divided our friends. I decided that as jelly took a while to set, I wasn't going to bother!

We lined the trifle bowl with raspberry swiss roll. 

We tried to make it look as pretty as possible. We were very precise to ensure the way the rolls swirled round was consistent. We made sure it went right up the sides of the bowl.

We started on both the custard and the fruit at the same time as we needed to get the trifle made in time for the evening. We used frozen berries and added a little sugar and water and jam, to make the fruit layer. 

We poured this over the swiss roll, trying not to get it all over the sides of the bowl.

After much stirring, the custard was ready, and we checked that it was tasty, which it was! We poured it over the top of the fruit and realised we had a problem. 

As you can see, you can barely see the custard! This was not how the trifle should be. Our trifle bowl is far too wide!  We had a pot of cream that we were going to use to make the whipped cream top of the trifle, but as the main shops were now shut, and we were lacking in custard, we made the decision to turn it into custard.  

Much better now! Check out the pretty swiss roll sides! Look at the steamed up bowl! Also, look at the vanilla fleckle in that custard! Proper good stuff.

Luckily our local convenience store had some of that elmea stuff (fake cream), that we could then whip up for the top layer.  I used two spatulas to blob it on, trying not to disturb the custard which wasn't quite as set as we'd have liked.

This added an interesting texture on top, which I quite liked.

It's beginning to look good there with all it's layers. 

Next I added some fresh raspberries in the gaps of the cream as a finishing touch. 

Doesn't it look yummy?

I think that's probably the most photos I've ever used in one post before! The trifle was pretty darn good, but the custard wasn't set enough. We had some for breakfast the next day and the custard was much more solid, so I'd recommend making trifle a day ahead of when you want to eat it. 

Christmas Revisited Part Two

When I was young we'd always have a light breakfast on Christmas day so as to be ready for the large Christmas lunch at midday. Ian grew up with a slightly different timetable on Christmas day and is used to a large breakfast and a later dinner. I like a full english so Ian's way seems pretty good to me!

This years fry up was even better because we were at Ian's parents so didn't have to make it!

Christmas dinner was also pretty epic, it took me ages to find some of it because it was piled so high! Look at all those lovely sprouts - I only have them at Christmas but I really love them so I might try and see if we can have them more often (by we I mean me, because Ian is not a fan). 

We enjoyed a few dinners out whilst up in Birmingham as Ian's parents were still trying to sort all the lose ends left over from their extension and so it was easier to wander along to the nearby restaurants. One restaurant was a steak house, that did amazing onion bread which I forgot to photograph but was so much better than the normal onion rings that normally accompany steak (although it was probably more filling so I struggled to get through the steak - I did eat Ian's bread too though so that might have been the problem!). We also visited The Oak, and I remembered to take pictures of only the starters this time, but I guess that's an improvement. These were chorizo fritters which were very tasty and nicely presented.

Ian preferred his starter which was goats cheese with a hazelnut crust and caramelised walnuts with apple puree. I can't remember what the red stuff was but the whole thing was good - I'm pleased we share starters!

When we got back home after our visit to Ian's parents, my mum and aunt came to visit for a second Christmas and some silly games, and Ian cooked another massive dinner. I've realised why I like my plates so much - because you don't often get blue food, so they stand out nicely from the food, but also adds a good amount of colour to the photos I take!   

A Christmas food round up wouldn't be complete without Christmas Pizza. Last Christmas we first experienced Christmas Pizza, and it was so amazing that we had to do it again.  Next year will be our turn to host it, so I need to document what the pizzas looked like so I can remember how to make it! We created an assembly line and managed to get through almost 8 pizzas between 8 people (which for reference doesn't need more than 2 tubs of mascarpone - my friend bought about four and ended up freezing the leftovers to make cheesecake with later - a slightly unsuccessful venture as it turned out.)

I made a nice trifle for dessert, but I'm going to allow that to get it's own post, as I took so many pictures during the process. 

Christmas Revisited

Now that the blogs are joined, I'm going to try and do a few more posts about crafty things from the gap on my other blog (the too guilty to post phase).

This is technically Ian's crafting that I'm about to show you. Every year (apart from Christmas 2010 for some reason) he makes me a christmas card. This year he stole his idea from an owl christmas tree ornament that a friend bought me. It's small enough that it can find a home, unlike some of the previous ones, which have been massive and are now collecting dust whilst waiting to be homed. It actually found a home on our christmas tree and so will be a nice reminder every year when I reuse it.

As well as the card, I also got the gift of extra stash goodies, as he ordered the cardboard from the internet and therefore couldn't tell how much he was ordering and we now have tonnes!

At Christmas, I decided to make my own wrapping paper. I went for simple brown paper stamped with some russian doll santas but it took quite a lot of time and we had quite a few presents to wrap. The parcels did look pretty when all tied up together with silver string, but I'm not sure it was worth the effort. 

I also had some fun wrapping escapades at Ian's parents. They were up to their eyeballs in tiling, carpeting and plumbing so the wrapping of the presents had fallen by the wayside. I'm no good at any of those things, so I took on the wrapping. Ian's mum didn't make it easy for me though, with a snow shovel for Ian's sister. I'm pretty proud of it though and it was a good challenge!

Whilst writing this post I've realised there was a lot of Christmas food related things that I've yet to post about too, so look out for Christmas Revisited part two!

Less Painful Memories

I've been reading a lot of other peoples blogs recently as part of the swapbot blog swaps that I've been doing.  I came across Mimi's blog, The Happy Honeybee and I read about her love of Christmas ornaments, and how a whole box got broken in a house move.  It reminded me of my latest Christmas and the sadness I felt when something similar happened to me.  I've not shared it before, because I was truly devastated, but there's a slightly more happy ending to my story now.  

I'd been making myself a collection of pottery snowmen - painted by me at the local pottery painting shop.  I put them in pride of place, on my mantel - they looked so lovely.  Every year, instead of a card, Ian draws me a nice christmassy scene - this years one seemed to make the perfect backdrop for my snowmen so I placed it behind them on the mantel.  

We had all my family over for christmas this year, and we cooked the bird on our barbecue outside to free up space in the oven for all the trimmings.  As Ian opened the door to outside, a gust of wind caught the backdrop picture, and it fell forward.  All the snowmen were pushed onto the fireplace, smashing into many pieces.  It was a real snowman massacre.  

What made it worse, was that I knew there weren't anymore of the big snowmen left at the pottery shop - their supplier had stopped selling them.  I couldn't replace them and I was heartbroken.  My first christmas in my new home was effectively ruined, but I had a good cry and got on with it as best I could.  Ian tried to superglue as much as he could back together - but there were so many missing shards and it just wasn't the same.  What made it worse was that it was my own stupidity that caused it - it was the hardest lesson to learn. 

Anyway, I did promise you all a happy ending so here it is.  I searched the internet high and low and found a supplier of the pottery snowmen.  I now have 11 unpainted ones sat in my library and 1 that we painted earlier this year to check that it would fire correctly in the kiln at the pottery shop.  So although I killed lots of snowmen that Christmas, I can get back my collection and be more careful with them in future. Oh, and the cute little rudolph on the end of the first picture survived (he fell on the carpet) so I guess that's happy too!

Work In Progress - Octopus

This is a picture of one of the octopuses I started making last year - I've got two on the go, one pink, one purple.  I was making them to give to my nieces for Christmas, but didn't finish them on time. I really should finish these off as they're so close to being done, all they need doing is their eyes, adding sequins and beads to their legs and then sewing all the legs on.  Hopefully this will shame me into doing it and I can give them as this years Christmas presents!

Homemade Challenge

Welcome to my new blog, a place for me to keep my craft based musings and progress pictures. Last Christmas I thought about making all of my presents, but only managed 2 or 3 (all food based, see here). So this year I'm starting early. I've been researching for the last couple of months, and building up my stash. I didn't make many things in school so I'm really starting as a novice, but hopefully in a few years time I'll be making all the presents without even blinking. Stay tuned for progress on my Christmas gifts (some may be kept secret until nearer the time so that people who read the blog don't see their presents!).