Christmas most definitely arrived in my little corner of London this weekend. I don't like to allow any mention of Christmas until after my birthday but as soon as we hit December, I embrace the festive spirit with a vigour which I think my boyfriend finds a little disturbing although he gamely tries to keep up with me.
After a busy few weeks, on Sunday we finally had a day when we were both at home. We had planned to go to the garden centre (such is the thrilling life that we lead) and do a few other necessary bits and pieces but when we woke up on Sunday morning, all of sudden they didn't seem so necessary.
Instead, we decided to dive headfirst into Christmas. Out came the Christmas tree, the box of decorations, the additional bag of decorations that I'd sneaked into the flat when my boyfriend wasn't looking
(Sample conversation:Him: I'm sure we didn't have this much tinsel last year.Me: Yes, I think we did.Him: I don't recognise this ornament, is it new? Me: I don't think so.Him: But there are too many for the tree this year and there weren't last year.Me: You must not be doing it right.)
I've always adopted the 'more is more' approach when it comes to decorating. There will be no fancy colour schemes here - if it doesn't look like Christmas has thrown up over my tree then I'm not happy. I have been collecting ornaments over the last couple of years from places that we've visited. There's a Rastafarian angel from Jamaica, a model of Cologne cathedral from last year's trip to Germany, a rather large Henry VII from Hampton Court Palace as well as what I would describe as 'the base decorations', the colourful wooden decorations that provide a suitable background for the stand out items.
It's a complicated process; my boyfriend needed to have a rest halfway through decorating the tree as he found it all a bit too much.
I do feel unspeakably better now that I have the tree up. I've even done most of my shopping so I'm hoping tonight there will be a big pile of presents under the tree. More and more people seem to have embraced the idea of homemade presents in the last few years. My crafting abilities leave rather a lot to be desired but even I can stretch to some edible presents and they always seem to be appreciated.
I don't know if we in the UK refer to this as chocolate bark or whether I have just become brainwashed by the US/Canadian blogs that I read but whatever you want to call it, it makes a ridiculously easy but delicious holiday treat. The most complicated part by far is melting some chocolate. Calling it a recipe really seems a stretch. The fancy chocolate shops are full of this kind of thing at the moment but I much prefer to make it at home where I can decide exactly what I want to throw into it. Here I've used some candied orange peel and some lightly caramelised pecans. The chocolate/orange combination is a classic after all and the nuts add a delicious crunch to the whole thing.
(Incidentally, I wasn't going to post two chocolate/orange recipes in a row but when I logged in this morning to blogger, the draft post I had been working on had disappeared. I was worried that I'd accidentally posted it but I can't find it anywhere. Utterly bizarre! This isn't a makeweight though, I was just going to publish it closer to Christmas but it's always fun to have a little schedule re-jigging first thing on a Monday morning. Plus it gave me an excuse to talk about my Christmas tree which makes me happy.)
So yes, in summary, rich dark chocolate, bright citrus notes and the welcome crunch of pecans. Chop it up, throw it an a bag and you'll be welcome at anyone's house this Christmas.
~
Candied orange and caramelised pecan barkIt feels wrong writing this is a recipe, it's far easier to just throw what you want in there. I had the candied orange peel on hand and half a bag of pecans that were going to waste so that's what I went for but use whatever floats your boat.
Ingredients
- 300g dark chocolate
- The candied peel of 1 orange
- 50g pecan nuts
- 15g unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons caster sugar
Cooking Directions
- To caramelise your pecans, melt the butter and sugar in a pan over a low heat. Add the pecans and cook for five minutes until brown and sugary. Place on some parchment paper to cool.
- To make the bark, melt the chocolate over a low heat. When melted, pour onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Allow to cool slightly before throwing on the orange peel and nuts. Chill until hard and them roughly chop into bitesize pieces.