December Recipes

Savoury Stars

Savoury Stars are quick and easy. They make lovely party snacks and disappear quickly too!

You will need-

Ready rolled puff pastry

For the toppings

Plant based mayonnaise

Plant based cheese

Mushroom pate

Pesto

Some garnishes- we used chopped chives, chopped sage, fennel, parsley, thyme and thinly sliced red pepper. You could experiment with other toppings like seeds or salad.

We used some star cutters, but you could make these any shape. We baked them at 200°C for about 6 to 7 minutes. Keep an eye on them, depending on size they may cook at different times.

When they are done, they will puff up and look golden. Cool these on a wire rack.

We grated and finely chopped the plant based cheese and mixed it with a spoon of plant based mayonnaise. For the other toppings we used some ready made mushroom pate and some pesto.

We put a small teaspoon of the toppings on each star and then decorated them with the herbs and red pepper.

Christmas Speculaas Biscuits

Although you can use this mix to roll out and cut, with shaped cutters, the traditional biscuits are made with a wooden mould. We picked ours up from charity shops, but these can be bought online. Although these aren’t cheap they will last a lifetime and are really easy and fun to use.

This recipe uses Lebkuchen spice mix. You can buy this ready made, but it’s easy enough to make yourself.

You will need

5 tbsp ground cinnamon

1 tbsp ground ginger

2 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground anise

1 tsp ground cardamon

1/2 tsp ground mace

Mix the ingredients together, sieve if necessary and store in a jar. This keeps well so can be used in following years.

Ingredients

225g plain flour

130g soft brown sugar

115g plant butter or a baking spread

7g baking powder

2 tbsp plant based milk

3 tsp lebkuchen spice mix

1/2 tsp almond essence

pinch of salt (you can leave this out if you use salted butter)

Put the dry ingredients into a bowl and then rub in the butter or spread with your finger tips. Sprinkle on the milk and essence, making sure the essence is mixed throughout the dough. Squeeze the mixture together to form a dough.

Sprinkle a little flour onto your mould an then press a piece of dough into the mould.

We used a butter knife to carefully take some of the dough off, some moulds might be a bit shallow in the middle, so for this one, we put a little bit back on, so it wasn’t too thin.

They come out fairly easily, you just need to make sure you sprinkle flour in for each biscuit. Tip the mould onto a lined baking sheet. Once you have filled you baking sheet, bake at 165°C for about 16 minutes, or until they have turned slightly golden around the edges. Cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet before finishing cooling on a wire rack. Store in an airtight tin, these keep really well, so they are great to make for gifts.

Cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet before finishing cooling on a wire rack. Store in an airtight tin, these keep really well, so they are great to make for gifts.

Easy Mince Pies

These are super easy but taste like you’ve made home made mincemeat. You use shop bought mincemeat but add some extras to make them taste so much better.

To make this really quick and easy, we used shop bought shortcrust pastry and a jar of ready made mincemeat. To this we added-

1/3 tsp mixed spice

1/2 tsp ginger

1 tbs mixed chopped nuts

2 tbs chopped apple

zest of 1/2 orange

1 tbs of cranberries

7 ground juniper berries

1 tbs of orange juice or brandy

You can leave any off those out or try adding some of your own, even if you just put some gated zest and ginger in, they taste so much better.

You could try adding chopped mixed peel, glace cherries, chopped walnuts, lemon zest, cinnamon…..

We used about half a jar of mince meat, this made 12 mince pies. We used a star cutter to make a star for the top and baked them. Cook the for around 15 to 20 minutes at 180°C, depending how thin your pastry is they might be ready sooner, so keep an eye on them.