22 Oct, 2010
Colour is a great source of inspiration, isn’t it? Sometimes just one gorgeous, vibrant hue can trigger a whole chain of ideas and creations. These beautiful red dahlias, the last of this year’s blooms from our village allotments, made me see red – in a good way! I started to think about those lovely, jewel-like sweeties known as Pates de Fruits in France. With colour in mind, I thought I would try to make some with the crimson juices of pomegranates and blood oranges.
I have a project in mind for these fruit jellies. We have a little Christmas/holiday fair coming up in the village hall next month, and I was asked to run a table. I decided that I would make some gifts and sweets to sell on my stall, and donate profits to Action Against Hunger. This organisation is committed to helping people around the world who don’t have enough to feed themselves and their children. I know that lots of people who work in the food industry give a lot, in donations as well as running fundraising projects, to help this cause and I am keen to give too.
So I have been thinking about what I might make to wrap into pretty packages and sell on my stall. I have never made fruit jelly sweeties before, and some practice seemed essential. I must say, it isn’t really as easy as it might seem to get these right. The differences in juices, concentration of fruit purees, the type of pectin, the time of cooking, all affect the result. And in jolly damp old England, the humidity is a factor too. The recipe below worked quite well for me. I made a version with mango puree and jam sugar (sugar with crystallised pectic mixed in) instead of the liquid pectin and that set very nicely too.
What do you think of my plans? Do you have any other ideas for lovely food gifts, sweet or savoury, that might go well on my stall? I plan on testing out some other ideas over the next couple of weeks, for example nougat, flavoured sugars and vin chaud spices. I’d love to hear your ideas for gifts, wrappings, ribbons, presentation – and I’ll share my experiments too.
Thanks for visiting Extra-Relish. Please do write me a comment – I really enjoy hearing from you. Px
in Allotment, Christmas, Colours, Fruit jellies, Photography, charity, gifts, pates de fruits, pomegratates, village | Comments (21)
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16 Dec, 2009
Christmas is truly upon us here in our part of England, complete with frosty weather. We even had some snow flurries today! I really love Christmas -twinkly lights, all the social and community activities, the music and of course, Christmas food!
We do a lot of baking in our house and no one escapes getting involved at this time of year. D is King of the Christmas Cake and it his his special project every year – especially the part of ‘feeding’ the cake with rum or brandy in the weeks leading up.
Our little boy loves being in the kitchen and he gets busy rolling and cutting out festive cookies.
This week we made some little buttery galettes sprinkled with gorgeous amber grains of sugar from Barbados. L was born in Barbados and likes to bring bits of that lovely island to our life here in England. I was delighted to find a box of Barbados sugar in our local supermarket. (See Plantation Reserve.) We sometimes like to dust with spice or infuse the sugar with vanilla. A recipe for the galettes follows below.
Christmas Galettes
225g plain flour
175g butter, chilled and diced
130g caster (finely granulated) sugar
1 egg yolk
Barbados golden sugar or demerera sugar to sprinkle
Dusting of cinnamon or mixed spice (optional)
Put the flour and butter into a food processor and whiz to a texture of breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and egg yolk and process until it forms a ball.
Turn the mix out onto a floured board and knead for a minute or and then wrap and allow the dough to rest in the fridge for at least half an hour.
Roll the dough out thinly (about depth of a pound coin) and cut out with a crinkly edged round cutter. You can make other shapes if you like, however these biscuits are quite delicate and break a bit easily for some shapes. Dust with spice if using, and sprinkle with the demerera sugar. (Or the wonderful Bajan sugar if you can find it.)
Bake the galettes on parchment in oven (preheated to 180 degrees centigrade) for about 10 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool on a wire rack.
These biscuits go very nicely with a small glass of something festive!
in Baking, Barbados, Biscuits, Christmas, Sugar | Comments (0)
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