Christmas baking on a budget

[Boohissmiss]

Money is tight this year so im planning on doing a lot of simple baking type things for the kids to pass long days in the house during the holidays. What things do you all make ? Only things I can think of so far is dipping oreos in choclate and decorating . Rice Krispie cakes and marshmallow top hats . All very basic I know but cheap and cheerful . Thanks in advance .

That is perfect BikeRunSki thankyou.

Question about ready made pastry - I use it but isnt it cheaper to make it? Or is it a false economy?

Pastry is cheap as chips to make, but much easier to buy!

I make shortcrust, but buy frozen flaky. Flaky is very time consuming to make by hand. I usually have a packet of flaky Jus-Rol in the freezer, which I can use to whip up marvellous pies in no time and impress everyone.

Has anyone made honeycomb successfully?

I think homemade pastry is probably cheaper based on the ingredients used, but more expensive based on the ingredients purchased iyswim. However ready made is much easier so if you're not going to use the full amount of pastry ingredients then you're better off getting ready made.

justkeepswimming
Fuel poverty might be a factor for your group.
For baking you might look at how to maximize the oven efficiency, eg cooking a chicken, potatoes and veg in the oven at the same time as cookies. But you have to consider different oven heat requirements, and for cakes not being able to open the door for the first half hour.

For something like a Yule log, you could make the topping from a bar of chocolate and a can of condensed milk (both very reasonable in aldi).

Left over topping can be rolled into balls and dusted with icing sugar or dipped in choc as truffles.

OhioOhioOhio I had great success with honeycomb last year - really simple to make, but the hot sugar means it's probably a bad idea for doing with little ones.

Any tips on how to do these without the chocolate going grainy? We made chocolate dipped apple slices at Halloween and they were lovely but after five mins the chocolate (dairy milk melted in a bowl over boiling water) went grainy. And my kids are not fast workers.

Alan thanks for that. I'm taking the group but not at all knowledgeable (hence googling !)

I 'm going to google Oreo truffles - they sound delicious.

Deminism It sounds to me as if moisture got into the chocolate and caused it to “seize”
Could be from the apples (you could try patting them dry on kitchen paper) or from the steam.

Or it could be that the chocolate got over cooked. I’ve also done that before too. You can remelt it when it starts to harden, or maybe work with smaller batches.

Nyima

Thanks. Did you mix the ingredients together really thoroughly first? Does that part really matter?

I followed this recipe: www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2685640/honeycomb

gingerbread is really cheap all basic ingredients only 15 minutes in oven
if you do baking at 4pm the oven is already hot ready to make dinner while you are clearing away washing up and you get a warm biscuit for pudding the rest you ice/ decorate the next day

marzipan is not that cheap, aldi do good cheap chocolate for melting under 50p for a 200g bar

your chocolate went grainy as some water/steam got in it probably from the fruit if fresh it would have natural moisture

Ooh cheap gingerbread sounds good.

Thank you!