Ridiculous Recipes With Silly Stories

I think we can all agree that is is FREEZING outside: I can't change the weather, but these recipes will hopefully be able to spread some warmth. For many families Christmas can be one of the most important holidays of the year, and my family is no different! From weird traditions to dusty decorations, Christmas is always exciting. Possibly the most interesting part of all of it is the crazy recipes! Today I’m going to be sharing a few of my family's best recipes, and the weird stories that go along with them. 

First off, let’s start with the good old Mince Pie, a common Christmas dessert in England.

Image from Wikimedia commons

This dessert is commonly served with hot custard, which is quite simple to make when using instant custard. It’s when you try to make it from scratch that it gets tricky. I have experienced the tragic difficulties of making custard rise by hand. It all started one night in England... my whole family was at my Uncle’s house, Christmas dinner was done and it was time for some dessert. My uncle suggested custard and insisted he would make it completely from scratch. I think we see where this is going… Anyway, he refused all help from anyone else and began his first attempt. After some time he simply began adding more and more of each ingredient, all the time insisting he could do it. However, once it got to the second hour with no custard the teasing began. My family has always been known to tease each other (it’s quite an English thing). So my family continued to wait for the custard while continuously poking fun at him.

Once it began to get late my parents decided that it was probably best to head to bed. My uncle was losing momentum, and he was approaching the fourth hour, no closer to custard. They ended up all going to bed without any desert, and let’s just say that he has never been able to live it down. 

Mince Pies are awesome though: I recommend trying it out for yourself! (Maybe get yourself some instant custard though.)

Heres the recipe: Source

STEP 1

Place 375g plain flour and 260g softened unsalted butter in a bowl and rub together to a crumb consistency.

STEP 2

Add 125g caster sugar and 1 large beaten egg, and mix together.

STEP 3

Tip out onto a lightly floured surface and fold until the pastry comes together, be careful not to over mix.

STEP 4

Wrap the pastry in cling film and chill for 10 mins.

STEP 5

Scoop the large jar of mincemeat into a bowl and add 2 segmented satsumas, 1 finely chopped apple and zest of 1 lemon.

STEP 6

Heat oven to 220C/200C fan/gas 7.

STEP 7

Roll out the pastry to 3mm thick.

STEP 8

Using a round cutter (about 10cm), cut out 16 bases and place them into muffin trays. Put 1½ tbsp mincemeat mixture into each. Brush the edge of each pie with a little beaten egg.

STEP 9

Re-roll out the pastry to cut 7cm lids and press them on top to seal. Glaze with the beaten egg, sprinkle with the extra caster sugar, then make a small cut in the tops.

STEP 10

Bake the mince pies for 15-20 mins until golden brown. Leave to cool before releasing them from the muffin trays and dusting with a little more icing sugar before serving

Let’s move on to our next recipe, COOKIES! Everyone loves cookies and my family is no exception: gingerbread, cinnamon, fruity, plain, any cookie is a good cookie to them. I’m going to be sharing a recipe for some good old plain Christmas cookies, but the story I will be sharing is one about another form of cookie, the dreaded gingerbread house.

My family used to always host a party on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas, so the 26th), and when I was younger they would often prepare some fun games for me and my sister to play with the other kids. Specifically, one year they tried a gingerbread house. Now you may be thinking, wow that’s awesome! And it was, for a little while. 

Bear in mind that there were about 15 kids at this party: that’s a lot of hands. I was one of the younger ones, and so I didn’t have any expectations of getting any gingerbread, but boy was I not prepared for the monstrosity that that gingerbread house would turn into. My parents gathered us around the table and asked everyone to be gentle when breaking the house and taking pieces. However, as soon as they said we could start, these kids went at this house with so much fury: its iced snowy roof was broken down by loads of tiny fists, its wall pushed though with so much rage! I couldn’t believe my eyes—they were screaming, laughing and actually thrashing the house with their bare hands, completely obliterating it into crumbs. They then took fistfuls of the crumbs and left the pile looking very satisfied with themselves. I am not exaggerating when I say that I have never seen such fury and rage being put towards an innocent dessert. They didn’t even eat much of it, they just pounded at it relentlessly. All I can say is that my parents never had another gingerbread house at another one of our parties.

Hopefully these sweet plain cookies will be delicious though, and please, be kind to your desserts. Source

STEP 1

Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

STEP 2

Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until pale, light and fluffy.

STEP 3

Beat in the egg and vanilla extract, a little at a time, until well combined.

STEP 4

Stir in the flour until the mixture comes together as a dough.

STEP 5

Roll the dough out on a lightly floured work surface to a thickness of 1cm/½in.

STEP 6

Using biscuit cutters or a glass, cut biscuits out of the dough and carefully place onto the baking tray. 

STEP 7

To make Christmas tree decorations, carefully make a hole in the top of the biscuit using a straw.

STEP 6

Bake the biscuits for 8-10 minutes, or until pale golden-brown. Set aside to harden for 5 minutes, then cool on a wire rack.

STEP 9

For the icing, sift the icing sugar into a large mixing bowl and stir in enough water to create a smooth mixture. Stir in the food colouring.

STEP 10

Carefully spread the icing onto the biscuits using a knife and sprinkle over the glitter. Set aside until the icing hardens.

I hope you've enjoyed these crazy stories: give the recipes a go and remember to treasure YOUR family over the holiday season!