It's Christmas

Well, nearly. Christmas for our family will come late this year. On Friday afternoon as it happens. I would love to spin a yarn about some strange sect we belong to that holds true to the Julian calendar... but you'd never fall for that. We were away at Christmas, mam wants to have Christmas with the kids - hence it's delayed to this weekend. This nicely coincides with Conor's birthday so the front room is full of presents ready to be hauled into the car for the trip down to Northumberland on Friday.

All of which gives you no explanation at all of the fuzzy brown blobs above. They are marzipan Christmas puddings in stage 2 of their evolution. (White chocolate 'sauce' and holly decorations to be added - time permitting.) They are blatantly copied from something an ex'es mum used to make. I wasn't around long enough to think of getting the recipe so have had to hone it patiently over the years and finally have it how I want it. (The key is to mix cake crumbs - madiera cake - with the marzipan to lighten the texture, in case you're interested in stealing the results of years of research.)

Sadly I was too impatient to temper the chocolate properly so they're off in the larder now to set.

Busy day. Kept coming back to thinking about a good friend who's having a horrible time. The internet is convenient, but virtual hugs don't really do the business.


EDIT: There isn't much of a recipe... but for what it's worth:

Add a bit less than half a supermarket plain madeira cake (200/225g?) to a pack (450g) marzipan. Do this by blitzing cake to crumbs in food processor and adding marzipan in lumps and blitzing bit by bit until you can roll it into balls. Just add enough cake that it tastes nice and light but still holds together.

Once in balls (mouth sized I guess - mine are bigger than maltezers, smaller than walnuts) dip in chocolate (any kind). When set, dribble melted white chocolate over the top to look like white sauce. It trickles more attractively if it's cooled down a lot and is thick. Add holly type decorations (angelica and small balls of red icing, or whatever) while white chocolate is still sticky.

Now that'll save you having to go through a dodgy relationship and many years of frustrating experimentation. I live to serve.