One of the tastes that I associate most with this time of year is Ginger.It's lovely warming taste and spicy smell makes me feel instantly Christmassy and as a family, we usually make a gingerbread house to decorate early in December and closer to Christmas we'll make some little gingerbread decorations for the top part of the tree (any food on the lower branches is claimed by Buddy usually).I thought about making a ginger caked today but I had some lemons to use up so I made some yummy lemon and ginger cupcakes instead. The tang of the lemon flavour goes brilliantly with the warmth … [Read more...]
Christmas Cupcakes – Snowball cupcakes with Advocaat frosting….
It's weird how a certain food or drink can remind you so much of someone isn't it?Every year, we used to go to my Nana's house to decorate her Christmas tree for us and every year (from when I was about 11) she used to reward me with a snowball - obviously weaker when I was younger but by the time I got to 18 they were were lethal and I always had to pop out to the kitchen to top up with extra lemonade.Now every time I see snowballs in the shops or I taste one, it makes me think of my lovely Nana and every year at this time, I buy a nice bottle of advocaat and have a drink to her. … [Read more...]
How to make homemade Skittles Vodka….
I first heard about homemade Skittles Vodka a few years ago now but I've never actually got around to making it until last week - probably because I was a bit dubious about it tasting as nice as people said it did and I didn't want to waste perfectly good vodka!I don't have as many photos of this as I really should have for a tutorial type post but that's because I took the photos on Mr Frugal's phone which he then wiped and did a factory re-set on without saving the photos. Clever or what?I do have a few though from Instagram so I'm going to make do with what I have and hope it's … [Read more...]
What to do with your leftover Christmas chocolate….
If you're house is anything like ours, leftover chocolate is about as rare as left over wine for most of the year. But around this time every year (and again at Easter) we seem to have masses of it!Our favourite way to use up any leftover chocolate is to melt it all together in a bowl, add some plates of chopped fruit, some marshmallows and maybe some cookies and give everyone a kebab skewer (or a fork) and away you go.This is easily the easiest to make and funnest to eat (not a word I know) pudding that I know....I don't like to brag but I *may* possibly have secured the Mother … [Read more...]
Make your own Christmas Tree chocolates….
Christmas tree chocolates usually cost between two and three pounds for eight (sometimes just six) but you can make your own for much less and it only takes a few minutes to do.All you need are some wrapped sweets or chocolates, some sellotape and some thread (or Christmas tree lametta).I *borrowed* a few sweets from my friends box of Cadbury's roses and bought a few of those Freddo bars from the shop to make ours with. The Elf ones with popping candy would have been better but they had none in so we settled for these ones!Just sellotape your thread to the chocolates and … [Read more...]
Cupcake Sunday – The best chocolate butter-cream you’ll every try and Reindeer cupcakes….
A couple of weeks ago it was Mr Frugal's birthday and as he was at work all day, I decided to make him a birthday cake ready for when he got in from work. Not just any chocolate cake though, I wanted to make him the best chocolate cake he'd ever had - I'm nothing if not ambitious you know! I made a normal 2 layer chocolate sponge cake using this recipe (except I left the choc chips out). I sandwiched the layers together with cherry jam and covered it in the most amazing chocolate buttercream you've ever tasted. Next up I covered it with Minstrels and Maltesers and added a candle and Voila … [Read more...]