Christmas Tree Brownie Baking - BLOGMAS DAY 8

Hello everyone! As you can tell from the title I took on some Christmas baking. I got a recipe from Sainsburys here after looking on my trusty Pinterest. Usually I'm a decent baker, the same applies here but my opinion on the finished product may be slightly different... 

Ingredients

• 150g cook’s Belgian dark chocolate (76% cocoa solids), roughly chopped
• 150g unsalted butter
• 3 large eggs
• 125g caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• zest and juice of 1 clementine (I USED A SATSUMA, CAUSE THEY'RE JUST THE FUCKING SAME TO BE HONEST)
• 3 tbsp port (I USED RED WINE AS AN ALTERNATIVE) 
• ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
• a good pinch of ground cloves
• several gratings of nutmeg
• 100g plain flour
• ¼ tsp baking powder

To decorate 

• 75g royal icing sugar
• 1-2 tbsp gold and silver sprinkles – we used star sprinkles
• 12 x Cadbury chocolate fingers

Ingredients taken straight from the Sainsburys website 

I love baking at the best of times but at Christmas time it's even better to have fun and experiment with recipes you've never tried before. Dan and I are planning to make Terry's Chocolate Orange brownies again soon, they ruled last time and Dan definitely got a lot of credit with his work friends. 

I cannot wait for Christmas time in the future when I have my own home and can freely bake whenever the fudge I want, and be a mum who bakes cookies for their kids when they get home from school. Or the mum who makes gingerbread men as little presents for people, I want to be THAT extra. 

They turned out looking fairly decent, so pat on the back to me. A great way to spend only a couple of hours on a day off! 

I'd say the following out of ten: 

Taste - 5/10 (personal preference) Dan said 5/10

Ease of baking - 8/10

Disaster level on my part - 6/10 (they look OKAY) 

Just to remind you the entire recipe is here so let me know if you're trying these out for Christmas! (I'd advise you to avoid using ground cloves however, they made them taste WEIRD. What else do you have planned to bake or cook this Christmas season, let me know! 

Shannon x 

Blogmas: Day Eight!

Hiiiiii! (The 8 is a snowman how cute, that is the cutest thing I've ever seen in my whole life.)

Blogmas is going to be so much better once I return home on Saturday and can do a lot more Christmassy stuff! I wanna do some baking or something, that'd be nice.

Currently it's 10am and I have a test today (which I'm very unprepared for due to my sleepless weekend and another sleepless night that is to come tonight, blegh) and also a sort of presentation but not really, FUN. Can't wait! But once they're out of the way I just have to submit my essays and I'm done for the semester, and I shall strut out of this student accommodation like BYE. But no, I'm going to miss my pals a lot over the holidays it's going to be odd.

Once again I'm going to update this throughout the day…I'm going to make that a thing, do people do that? I feel like my approach to blogging is a lot different to other peoples. Mine is boring? Or humorous? I don't know. And it's very mismatched and weird - just like my life lolz.

Okay it's almost midday and I'm kinda nervous for this test agh, then I have a presentation but it's not really a presentation I don't know what it is but I know I haven't written any notes or whatever to speak about it! CRAP. BALLZ.

It's just gone 7pm now and I had my tests etc, all was okay - emphasis on the okay -  but now I'm set for a long night (I shall let you know why tomorrow) I'm tired just thinking about it.

One day closer to going home, one day closer to Christmas!

Mum sent me a picture of the tree, agh I can't wait!

How has your day been?! Please do let me know!