Mad for Christmas baking!

Hello all

I was asked by the Baking Mad people to have a go at baking one of their Christmas recipes. That sounded right up my street.

I often use the website now as it is chock full of recipes, and I had no idea what I fancied so I ended up browsing for a long time.

I was so excited when I saw the instructions for making penguin decorations! Just what I was looking for!

There were some instructions, but I was a bit unsure as to the relative size of each piece. But, I am very pleased with the finished items. I was not sure how to make the tree, so I made a green cone, and then stuck on little triangles of green icing for the branches.

Then, when browsing again I saw a recipe for stollen bites. Stollen is one of my favourite cakes- I love anything with marzipan, and I think the spices just make it smell like Christmas. The recipe I usually use is a Rachel Allen one, but it does take a while, and this recipe seemed quicker so I decided to give it a go today.

The dough was easy to make, although in the recipe it mentioned adding sugar, but there was no amount given-I went for 50g as the dried fruit and marzipan sweeten it a lot. A word of warning- the dough is very sticky, but that is fine (and the same with other stollen recipes)- it is not like a bread dough, so not that easy to shape. It rested while I was at aerobics, and then I baked it while the oven was on for dinner.

You do have to dust it liberally with icing sugar when it comes out of the oven! Although I am sure that was no where near to the 50g stated in the recipe.

I thought it might be more like a recipe for individual ones, but you baked it in more of a rectangle shape, and then sliced it, although you could easily leave it as a loaf shape. If you fancy trying to make stollen then I would recommend this recipe, because it is much easier than the recipe I have used before, although I would add in some flaked almonds, as I love the crunch they add to the cake.

Perfect with a cup of tea, and it will freeze well too (if I can make it last that long….)

Baking mad also have some fab recipes for cupcakes, and some beautiful looking mince pies, so check them out if you fancy getting your festive bake on.

Are you a stollen fan? Are you decorating your Christmas cake this year? Any other festive recipes I should try?

I am off to try some stollen 🙂

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16 thoughts on “Mad for Christmas baking!”

    1. Thanks 🙂 They don’t look like the ones on the baking mad website, but they are good enough I think!
      Have a go at stollen, that recipe was really easy- I used half plain flour and half wholegrain spelt (not even bread flour which some recipes use I think)- it is worth it for the melting marzipan alone!

  1. Great stuff! Getting hungry now 😉 I really need to start baking some Christmas cookies. It’s not like they’re going to bake themselves 🙂

  2. Love stollen but I don’t really ever have it. I really only like small amounts of marzipan so I like little stollen bites! 😉

    One of my favourite Christmas snacks are Kruschiki which my grandmother makes. They are basically fried biscuits. 😉 So blooming though.

    1. It is a good one to make as I think it is so nice when warm, plus the spices make it smell like Christmas 🙂

  3. Wow your decorations are amazing!! They are so good! I definitely will not be doing my own decorations for our cake. I can barely draw a penguin let alone make one out of icing. I will be sticking with the stuff I bought from Oxford and some plastic bits and bobs. Safer that way! 😉
    Ahh I love stollen. I made one last year. I’m thinking of making one this year if I have time. It’s soo good with the marzipan. I might try this recipe, looks good!

    1. Yes- that recipe had egg and milk in it, but I think the milk was mainly to start off the yeast so you could do it with another milk so long as you added some sugar- I did it with almond milk last year I think. The egg just enriches the dough a bit, so it would still work without it I am sure.

    1. You are very kind- but they are nowhere near professional! One of my friends does cake decorating properly and her cakes are amazing- I don’t have the fine motor skills for that!

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