The Christmas Chronicles by Nigel Slater. Read Along Thread 2022 PART 2

[LillianGish]

A continuation of the brilliant thread started by @Dillidilly who I hope is still lurking somewhere and reading along

Thank you for the new thread @LillianGish! 🎄🎄🎄

Yes to @Dillydilly!

I’m making coffee and in a minute I’ll be heading back up to bed with Nigel, to read today’s chapter. I’ve managed to do everything on the to-do list as far as presents/prep is concerned! Just need to send the parcel of Christmas treats and gifts for my girls who we won’t be able to see this year. So all of December will be spent being as chilled as possible and squeezing every bit of hygge I can into the season.

Later today I’m making cinnamon rolls/buns, which DH is very excited about.

Ooh yum! I like the sound of that!

If anyone wants a low effort Christmas treat idea, chocolate bark is good!

Put white, milk dark chocolate bars on a baking tray in the oven on a gentle heat.

When they soften, swirl. Add sprinkles and toppings of all exciting kinds. Fridge. Snap and bag up the irregular chunks!

I'm also going to trial making those chocolate drops covered in sprinkles. DH loves them, and they haven't been in Lidl or Aldi this year.

I spent ages trying to track down the name of those chocolates. Jazzies and snowies seems to be the informal name, I was trying to remember 'nonpareil'!

Fab name for a simple sweet!

28 November
Christstollen, Dresden and the Butter Letter
I love stollen, but I'm not sure I'll be making my own.

I’m going to try this year! Have ordered marzipan (decided not to make my own as I’ve a tendency to bite off more than I can chew, har har).

Apologies @LillianGish but could you try to bold the title instead? It’s so much easier to see that way...

Chocolate bark sounds great! I forgot to give my Christmas cake its final feed yesterday so will do that today instead. Then icing it at the weekend (we eat ours throughout December.)

I’ve never made marzipan but I noticed Nigel is quite scathing about commercial. I’ve never been a marzipan fan although I like almonds so I did wonder about giving it a try to use to make stollen.

So how much of a faff is it really?

Most marzipan you can easily buy is very low in almond. If you buy good quality it makes a huge difference, but it’s twice the cost.

I’ve never made it myself so I couldn’t say, tbh! But I did see a recipe in my Hairy Bikers Christmas book the other day which really didn’t look too bad.

Thank you for the new thread. I think I will be having a go at chocolate bark. I assume a very low oven?

Thank you for the new thread LillianGish

Thanks for the new thread, I am a bit behind but hoping to catch up on audible.

I used Sainsburys TTD Clementine Marzipan last year (NVN) but it was nicer than the regular one.

Yes, elephant. Maybe even after a meal has been cooked, using residual heat.

If I had a silicon tray I'd do it in the microwave I think.

I'll make some tomorrow and feed back.

I made my own marzipan a few years ago. I think I even used Nigel’s recipe. It was easy enough to make but it did feel like another task to do on an already long list so I’ve never made it again. I only ever do a very thin layer of marzipan on my Christmas cake so Shop bought is good enough for me.

I do a slightly more faffy bark every year - later of white chocolate, layer of dark ganache with peppermint essence, layer of white chocolate, smashed up minty candy canes on top. Is lovely.
Made Xmas cake yesterday too - it came out rather well if I do say so myself

@ABookAndCake I only made it once, never again. It was crumbly and rubbish and like others I only use a very thin layer anyway so I stick with shop bought. My life is too short and busy to do everything Nigel's way!

Cake looks fabulous @bigbadbarry !

And thank you for the new thread. I have fallen behind on the book but am at least keeping up with the thread now

Sounds lovely, BigBadBarry!

Thanks for the new thread.

I have so much catching up to do with reading.

Marzipan is my guilty pleasure. At the moment I am working my way through (probably too many) marzipan logs from Lidl covered in dark chocolate.

@bigbadbarry your cake looks magnificent.

I am still toying with the idea of making a cake, but hesitate as it will be only me that will eat it. Ideally I wanted to veganise my Gran’s recipe, but I need to research further before running the risk of making an expensive mistake.

Here we go... this sat in the air fryer after it was used at lunch time. As you can see, the mix/arrangement of dark choc and white choc (only had chips) wasn't quite right. I'll do better next time. Tastes amazing, given it's just Lidl basic dark choc, and white choc chips.

It's for a 6 yr old. I'll do something more sophisticated for the grown ups!

Just marking my place. I don’t have a lot of time for actual cooking so my reading is more aspirational - all the things I would love to do/make if I had more time!

@ThreeRingCircus - eating Christmas cake throughout December is such a good idea. Can't believe I have never thought of doing that! In fact I haven't made one this year, because we are going to my mum's for Christmas and I thought I'd be sick of all things Christmas by the time we got back. If only I had considered this option sooner - I love making the cake and the lovely smell that fills the house. A cup of tea and a slice of Christmas cake would have been the perfect accompaniment to the Christmas Chronicles. Next year...

@LillianGish you could try Delia’s creole cake...she says that as it’s so full of booze it doesn’t seem to matter much whether or not you make it late.

Nigella has a couple of relatively last minute recipes too