What we made for the teachers: Baking for Christmas.

Thought I would share some quick and easy Christmas bakes, these two recipes are ideal if you don't have much time and you want to make something that looks and tastes great but does not take too much time or effort.

I ran out of a bit of time and steam in this last week, between them, Ben and Jack had four teachers as they both had a job share. I had various plans along the way but mostly I had my heart set on making gingerbread cookie mix in a jar with a cookie cutter attached for the teachers with older children and a jar filled with gingerbread play dough for the teacher with a little boy who is MIllie's age.

But this just did not happen and I have filed it away under ideas for next year. In the end I was a bit pushed for time and I resorted to a jar of Christmas cookies and a bottle of wine, cause lets face it, I am sure they could do with a vino or two after looking after my children for a year.

These are my fail safe chocolate chip cookies and I make various versions of them throughout the year, plain chocolate, dark chocolate and apricot. I always attempt to delude myself that they are a little bit healthy because of the oats, but really who am I kidding. But they taste great, always turn out and are fast and easy to make. They are adapted from a Jo Segar recipe.

500 grams of butter softened
6 table spoons of condensed milk
1.5 cups of sugar
3 cups of plain flour
3 cups of rolled oats ( I use the unrefined thick cut type in an attempt to extend the health delusion)
2 tea spoons of baking powder
400 grams of white chocolate roughly chopped
1/2 a cup of dried cranberries
1/2 a cup of shelled, roasted and salted pistachios


Preheat the oven to 180 ( 160 if using a fan) cream the butter and sugar, I do this in  a stand mixer and beat them for ages. Add the other ingredients and mix well, I do this in a large bowl with a spatula. Place spoonfuls onto a well greased oven tray and flatten them.

Cook for 10-15 minutes. I watch these very carefully, I have a husband who prefers a soft chewy cookie so I tend to take these out of the oven when they are just slightly undercooked, but they are equally as delicious crunchy and caramelized. You do have to watch the white chocolate though, it can catch quite quickly and will burn fast.

Earlier in the week we made some Christmas cupcakes for a shared lunch and they were so quick and easy, I thought I would share them here too. I used Anabel Langbein's Ultimate Chocolate Cake Recipe to make cup cakes. I got the red and white spotted cases and some cup cake decorations from The Home Store. Using this recipe for cup cakes takes about 12-18 minutes depending on your oven.

Then I made some peppermint  butter cream,
60 grams of unsalted butter
120 grams of icing sugar
1 tea spoon of peppermint oil
Beat together in a stand mixer for approx 5 minutes until pale and creamy
At this point I folded through some candy cane sugar sprinkles I had, if you don't have any of these you could smash up some candy canes and use the crumbs

I piped the icing on with a jumbo star icing tip and sprinkled some of the candy cane sugar on the top


These were so simple to make, look effective and best of all taste delicious.