Yule Mule (Cocktail)

Ever since I made this delicious Dutch Orange Bitters, I've been keeping an eye out for cocktails to use it in. This Yule Mule is (as you can tell by the name) a traditional Yuletime cocktail, but really is great any time of the year. It's incredibly refreshing on a hot Australian summer day, so bring it out at your family Xmas this year. You could even give gifts of little bottles of home made Orange Bitters to family with a copy of the recipe for this cocktail so they can replicate it at home.

How are you going for Xmas gift ideas? If you're a bit stumped, or are looking to add in some home made edible stocking fillers then Gormandize has definitely got you covered! Small edible gifts are also great for colleagues, teachers or neighbours who you want to give a gift to but don't know that well and don't want to spend too much on. All this month starting tomorrow, I'll be sharing Christmas Gift ideas on the Gormandize facebook page. Don't worry, they're not all just different types of biscuits in jars - they're very varied. Follow the page on facebook to get all these nifty ideas in one place. 

Yule Mule

Ingredients

1 1/2 measures of vodka

1/2 measure fresh lime juice

1/2 measure cranberry juice

Dash of orange bitters 

3 measures ginger beer

To Make

1. Combine vodka, lime juice, cranberry juice and orange bitter. Shake well and strain into a highball glass half filled with ice.

2. Top up with ginger beer and serve. 

Makes 1 drink - multiply by however many people you're making it for.

Candy Cane Brownie Parfaits

Christmas is fast approaching, I hope you are not stressing out! I've always been a plan-everything-majorly-in-advancen kind of person, so I never find Christmas too stressful. I bought most of my presents while I was travelling in Sri Lanka in July, so I've just been doing some final edible gifts to go with them. I'm a big advocate of edible gifts. Most of the people in my family don't actually need more stuff, and if they do then I don't know what it is that they want. So, a thoughtful handmade edible gift saves space in their house and saves them ending up with something they didn't actually want or like. I've tried to go for some different gift ideas this year, and I'll share them with you in the next few days - so keep your eye out!

In the meantime, it's time for the last Sweet Adventures Blog Hop of the year! There have been some great hops over the year - and I'm glad to say I have managed to squeeze in an entry to all 12 of them! Wow. Here are the other great themes from this year:

November's Vegetable Hop - Jus Alpukat (Indonesian Avocado Milkshake)

October's High Tea Hop - Frankfurter Kranz (German Layered Bundt with Rum Buttercream)

September's Saucy Hop - Afghan Brides Fingers with Orange Blossom Syrup

August's Berry Hop - Sugar Free and Vegan Raspberry Fudge

July's Nut Hop -  Best Ever Vegan Carrot Cake  (I got this one in just in time, but it never appeared on the link list so you may have missed it!)
June's Pie Hop - Easy, Sticky, Messy Banana Rum Pie

May's Tea Hop - Thai Red Tea Vegan Jelly with Poached Apples
April's Lemon Hop - Lemon Curd 'Cake Sandwiches'

March's Layers Hop - Rhubarb and Apple Sago Parfait

February's 'Love' Hop - African Almond, Pistachio and Orange Blossom Bites

January's Choc Hop - Black Forest Shots & Truffles in 3 Flavours: Paprika, Tahini & Strawberry Gum
December's Festive Hop - Chocolate Ice-Cream Christmas Pudding

This time round, being December - the theme is "Sweets for Santa". It is at this point I must confess a secret, I've had this dessert going round in my brain since last Xmas! Last year, right after the rush of Xmas - I happened upon a box of crushed up mini candy canes in the reduced section of my supermarket. Because they were all smashed, and because Xmas is over, they were 99c for the box! I bought them immediately and squirrelled them away. They've been sitting in my cupboard ever since and now I finally get the chance to bring you my Candy Cane Brownies (in parfait form!).

Ingredients

Brownies
1 cup wholemeal plain flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
50g dark chocolate
2/3 cup smashed candy canes

Vegan Brandy Whipped Cream
2 cans coconut cream, refrigerated for at least 24 hours
2 tbsp soft icing mixture
2 tsp brandy
More crushed candy canes, to garnish

To Make:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Combine the flour, sugar, cocoa and baking powder in a bowl.
3. Add the water and oil and mix into a thick batter.
4. Melt the chocolate in a metallic bowl sitting on top of a bowl of boiling water (make sure NO water gets into the actual chocolate, just use the heat from the boiling water to heat up the metallic bowl).
5. Stir the melted chocolate and the smashed candy canes (see note below on smashing up candy canes) into the mix.
6. Grease a small-medium square baking dish and line with greaseproof paper (this is important, as the candy canes will melt as they bake and become very sticky). Spread the batter evenly into the dish.
7. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely, it is best if you can refrigerate them before assembling the parfaits, so the brownies can firm up.
8. To make the whipped cream: When you open the tin of coconut cream you will notice that the top is a very solid thick cream. Scoop out all of the solid thick cream on top (you can reserve the liquid to use in another meal – like a curry or a smoothie).

9. Put the thick cream into a bowl and mix well using a hand held electric mixer. Move the beaters up and down to try and get as much air into the cream as possible. Add the sugar and brandy and beat until it pretty much resembles thick cream.
10.To assemble, break up pieces of the brownie and place in the bottom of a glass (tumbler, martini glass, wine glass, beer glass - all work well!). Layer some cream on top and then repeat with another layer of brownie and then cream. Decorate with a layer of crushed candy canes

Makes 6 parfaits (varies, depending on the size of your glasses)

Tip: If you make these in advance, add the crushed candy canes on top just before serving, so they stay nice and crunchy.

What is the best way to smash a candy cane?

Smashing up candy canes into fine pieces can be easier said than done. Food processors don't work too well for candy canes - so here are some tips. The easiest way to smash your candy canes is if they come already in individual wrappings - just leave the candy cane in the plastic wrapping and then go to town on it with a meat tenderiser (yes, for some reason I own a meat tenderiser although I have never used it for tenderising meat) or a mallet. Or a hammer, for that matter. If you find they're not smashing up as easily as you'd like, you can put them in the freezer for a bit to make them more brittle. I didn't find this step necessary though.

If they're not in individual packaging, just put them all in a ziplock bag and then bash at them the same way, you'll end up with some holes in the bag but that doesn't really matter. Once they're all smashed up, snip the corner off the bag and you can pour out your shards easily and without making a big mess.

Happy Smashing!

Edible Christmas Gifts Part 4: Orange & Pistachio Shortbread

Christmas? No Problem, Man. I've just finished making all my Xmas presents today - and man it feels good to have it all done. Above we have (L-R): Cranberry and Almond Biscuits, Orange and Pistachio Shortbread and Tahini and Lime Biscuits - all vegan of course because that is what we do here at G w/ A & K. My family and friends will also be getting a lovely array of home made jams, for details and recipes see Edible Christmas Gifts Part 1.... and apologies to any family who are reading this and just got their Xmas gift surprise ruined....

So when I sat down to plan my Xmas biscuit jars I immediately remembered A-dizzle's delicious Spiced Vegan Shortbread recipe posted up recently. So I decided to use that and to make a variation on this great shortbread, so that I could offer up another Xmas gift idea: Orange and Pistacho Shortbread. 

Ingredients:

1 cup of nuttelex or other non-dairy butter/margarine
½ cup of brown sugar
1 tsp of vanilla extract

1 tsp orange essence
2 1/4 cups of plain flour 

1 tbsp orange zest

1/3 cup shelled pistachios (measure first, then chop finely)

To Make:

1. Preheat your oven to 180° (conventional) or 160° (fan forced).
2. In a large bowl, cream the nuttelex, sugar, orange extract and vanilla extract together with an electric mixer. Add the orange zest and mix again.
3. Add the flour and spice mix (1/2 cup at a time) to the nuttelex and mix well with a spoon or your fingers until a smooth, even and firm dough has been formed. This should only take a couple of minutes.
4. After lining a tray with baking paper, roll small balls out of the dough and press each down gently with two fingers. After pressing down each ball, you can press down on each side of the biscuits with a fork to create a design.
5. Place your shortbread in the oven for 20-25 minutes. They should still look nice and pale and feel a bit too soft to touch (don't worry they will firm up as they cool), if they feel hard and biscuity straight out of the oven they are over cooked.
6. You can now remove your shortbread biscuits from the oven, cool them for 10 minutes and enjoy!

Makes about 26 biscuits.

Want more Special Edible Gift Ideas? Check out the rest in this series of posts:
Edible Gift Ideas 1: Jams!! (several of them!)
Edible Gift Ideas 2: Super Gingery Gingerbread People
Edible Gift Ideas 3: Spiced Shortbread

And if you are in the Xmas spirit:
Chocolate Ice-Cream Christmas Pudding
Mulled Spiced Cider

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Chocolate Ice-Cream Christmas Pudding

To be totally honest I've never really liked Xmas pudding, which is the main reason that I've never even bothered to try and make it vegan. In Australia Xmas is so damn hot (although probably not this year, damn climate change) that boiled fruit cake is really not the most appropriate of desserts - the solution is Chocolate Ice-Cream Christmas Pudding! Not only is it much tastier but it is also a LOT quicker and easier to make. So think outside the box this year and surprise your family with this rich and chocolatey Xmas treat. 

Initially my plan was to do the whole thing and make the ice-cream myself but then I thought 'hey! Xmas is stressful enough so nobody wants to be making freaking ice cream, right?' - so this is the quickie version with store bought ice cream, but I promise that soon I will post an ice cream pudding recipe with home made ice cream (I'm thinking Passion fruit, Mango and Vanilla Bean Ice-cream Pudding - what do you think?). But back to the point in hand:

Ingredients

300g mixed dried fruit (raisins, currants, sultanas, mixed peel, cherries)

100g glacé cherries (I used red but go red and green if you want to be festive)

2 tbsp brandy

1 tsp orange zest

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg 

1.5L vegan chocolate ice cream

100g dark vegan chocolate

3 tbsp soy milk

2 tsp maple syrup

Slivered almonds, to garnish

To Make:

1. Chop the mixed fruit up into smaller pieces and place in a bowl. Add the brandy, glacé cherries, orange zest and spices and leave to soak for at least an hour (you can leave it over night if you like).

2. Line a small-medium pudding bowl with plastic cling wrap (my pudding bowl was abut 21cm diameter and 11cm tall - only makes a smallish pudding but you won't need more because it is very rich).

3. Take the ice cream out of the fridge and leave for about 5 minutes to soften a bit (but not too melty).

4. Mix the chocolate ice cream into the fruit mix, mixing very thoroughly.

5. Pour into the plastic lined pudding bowl and put in the freezer to set overnight. You can also make this several days in advance (saves you doing all your cooking on Xmas eve!). 

6. When ready to serve, heat the soy milk in a small saucepan until hot but not simmering or boiling. Remove from heat and add the broken up dark chocolate and the maple syrup. Stir continuously as the chocolate melts and you should end up with a lovely glossy ganache (the ganache topping is optional but it does make the final product look more impressive).

7. Just before serving remove the pudding from the freezer and turn out onto a flat serving plate (the plastic wrap should make this nice and easy). 

8. Drizzle the ganache down the sides and sprinkle with slivered almonds. Serve immediately!

Should serve about 13-15 people.

More great Xmas ideas?

Try our Edible Christmas Gifts Specials:

Strawberry and Rhubarb Jam

Super-gingery Gingerbread People Biscuits

Spiced Christmas Shortbread

Or try our Mulled Spiced Cider - because Christmas is a time for spices!

This post is part of the Festive Favourites Sweet Adventures Blog Hop hosted by 84th & 3rd.

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Edible Christmas Gifts Part 3: Spiced Christmas Shortbread

A plate of these babies will look and taste great on the table at Christmas. Better yet, fill a jar with your awesome and easy to make shortbread, tie a festive ribbon around the top and... BOOM! You have an inexpensive and tasty gift to give!

Ingredients:

1 cup of nuttelex or other non-dairy butter/margarine
½ cup of brown sugar
2 tsp of vanilla extract
2 cups of plain flour (white or wholemeal)
4 tsp of ground cinnamon
½ tsp of ground cardamom
½ tsp of ground cloves

To Make:

1. Preheat your oven to 180° (conventional) or 160° (fan forced).
2. In a large bowl, cream the nuttelex, sugar and vanilla extract together by mixing until smooth. I find it is easiest to do this with a fork (or an electric mixer if you have one).
3. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and spices together until combined.
4. Add the flour and spice mix (1/2 cup at a time) to the nuttelex and mix well with your fingers until a smooth, even and firm dough has been formed. This should only take a couple of minutes. If it is too sticky you may need to add a bit more flour.
5. After lining a tray with baking paper, roll small balls out of the dough and press each down gently with two fingers. After pressing down each ball, you can press down on each side of the biscuits with a fork to create a design.
6. Place your shortbread in the oven for 20-25 minutes and...
7. You can now remove your shortbread biscuits from the oven, cool them for 10 minutes and enjoy!

Note: Feel free to sprinkle these with icing sugar and/or cinnamon.

Makes 25-30 biscuits.

For a variation on these, try K-bobo's Orange and Pistachio Shortbread!

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Edible Christmas Gifts Part 2: Super-Gingery Vegan Gingerbread People Biscuits

Gingerbread Men and Women are generally awesome - and are even more awesome when they are made to look like your friends (ok, not actually like them very much) as gifts to give to them for Xmas. For example, in the above picture we have (starting from top left and going clockwise): K-bobo, Katie-Cuddlepot, Daniel, Ben, Super Sophie, Chris, Paolo, Leobean and A-dizzle.

These particular gingerbread people are extra gingery with a double ginger hit so if your friends and family don't like ginger...... well...... don't make them these.... or divorce them. Don't worry A-dizzle will be posting some awesome Xmas shortbread recipes for those of your family and friends that don't do ginger. 

Ingredients

1/3 cup canola oil

1/2 cup sugar

1/8 cup blackstrap molasses (just fill a 1/4 cup measurement halfway)

1/4 cup almond milk or soy milk

2 cups plain wholemeal flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarb soda

2 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 cup crystallised (or you can also use glacé) ginger, chopped very finely

To Make:

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C, or about 160 if your oven is fan forced.

2. In a bowl whisk together the oil, sugar, molasses and milk until well combined.

3. Add one cup of flour and whisk through. After this you will want to put the whisk aside and get a wooden spoon because the mix will get too stiff.

4. Add the bicarb, baking powder, spices and the other cup of flour and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon (this will help develop your huge biceps so you may like to even out the other side by stirring a bit with your left (or non dominant) hand). Stir through the finely chopped ginger.

5. Wrap the biscuit dough up in plastic wrap and flatten slightly into a thick disk. Refrigerate for about an hour and a half (or as long as it takes before you have time to make them - you can leave in the fridge for up to 2 days, but make sure you take it out of the fridge 10 mins before using to soften it up a bit).

6.Flour your benchspace and roll out the dough to about 1/2 cm thick (keep the piece of plastic wrap aside though as you will use it again). Use a person shaped biscuit cutter to cut out the biscuits and transfer them carefully to a tray lined with baking paper (you will want to do this with a thin spatula). Continue until you can't fit any more out of your rolled dough.

7. Grab up all the little extra bits of dough and put them back in the plastic wrap. Wrap tightly and knead a bit before flattening out into a disc shape again (this will smoosh all the pieces together). The roll this piece out and cut some more.

8. Keep repeating step 7 until as many biscuits are cut out of the dough as possible. Here they are before cooking:

9. Bake each batch for about 8 minutes (if you know your oven is very hot you will probably want to reduce that to 6-7 mins, or reduce the temp) and then transfer to a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely before icing.

Makes 22 Gingerbread People (may vary depending on the size of your cutter).

Now the icing...

How much effort you want to go to really depends on how much time you have. You can make do with just eyes and mouth or you can go the whole shebang and give them little outfits.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups soft icing mixture

2 tbsp soy milk

Food colourings (of your choice)

Coloured sprinkles (if you want - I used them to make A-dizzle's awesome colourful tights because she always wears awesome tights)

To Make:

1. Put icing sugar in a bowl and add 2 tbsp soy milk. Mix well with a butter knife. 

2. Consistency should be like toothpaste, nice and thick but easy to pipe. If it is too dry add 1/2 tsp more soy milk, alternately if you find it is too runny you can add a little more icing mixture.

3. Split icing into 3 containers and add a different colour to each one (I used green, yellow and hot pink).

4. Put into piping bags with the thinnest nozzle you have and go crazy on the little divas!

5. If you want to use the coloured sprinkles just smear some icing on first so that they stick (I made a small amount of brown icing using a bit of cocoa powder to use for sticking sprinkles to - but you can use the coloured ones too).

Here are all the other ones that I made too:

And all of them together:

Edible Christmas Gifts Part 1: JAM!! (Strawberry and Rhubarb Jam)

Buying Christmas presents can be not only hard but stressful. But here is the secret - home-made edible Christmas presents are not only cheaper and cooler but are also a lot more special and personal to the person you give them to (they also show off your rad kitchen skillz! and we all know that girls only want boyfriends who have great skills...). Jams are particularly special gifts if you give them flavours that they can't buy anywhere else - like the four listed below.

So, pictured above we have plenty of jam varieties for you to choose from:

Tangelo and Goji Berry Jam (I know, tangelos are a bit hard to get your hands on but if you can then definitely pick this one because it has a delicious tart freshness to it)

Strawberry and Mulberry Jam (you can't go wrong with this one - and if you can't get the mulberries just substitute raspberries or blackberries)

Strawberry and Rhubarb Jam (recipe below - it pretty much blew my mind)

Tomato and Pineapple Jam (for those a bit more adventurous, this is both mine and my partner's favourite type of jam - probably the main reason we are together)

So - here are the steps to awesome gifts that everyone will love: 

1. Make your jams

2. Bottle them up 

3. Add some nice handwritten labels

4. You can put some Christmasy fabric on the top

5. Tie some ribbon around it to make it festive

6. Give at Christmas

7. Get ready to accept some serious praise

Strawberry and Rhubarb Jam

Ingredients
750g fresh strawberries
750g fresh rhubarb stalks, cut into about 1cm pieces
1.5 kg sugar
1 packet of Jam Setta (for info on Jam Setta see this other jam post)

To Make
1. Chop up strawberries, I like to do about half of them small and the other half chunky. Chop the rhubarb into pieces about 1cm long. Put all the fruit in a big saucepan (ideally the jam should only take up about 1/3 of the saucepan so probably use the biggest one you have).
2. Add the sugar and stir through. Put the pot on a low heat (you don't need to add any water!) and stir a bit until the juice starts to come out of the fruit and the sugar starts to melt. Once there is enough liquid in the bottom of the pan you can stop stirring and cover the pot over to bring it to a simmer.
3. Simmer for about 20 minutes. Then add the jam setta and simmer for another 10 minutes.
4. Check the jam has set. To test this do a set test, place a tsp full of jam (preferably not a chunky fruity bit) on a saucer and put it in the freezer for about 30-40 seconds. Take it out and run your finger through it. If the jam crinkles then it is ready. If it doesn't boil the jam for 5 more minutes and try the test again.
5. Once you have a successful set test remove the jam from the heat.
6.Wash empty glass jars in hot soapy water and rise well. Dry and fill with hot jam. Screw the lids on very tightly.
7. Line a huge saucepan with tea towels (so the glass jars don't touch the bottom). Place your tighly sealed jam-filled jars in the saucepan and cover completely with cold water. Cover and bring to the boil. Boil for 20 minutes and then turn off the heat.
8. Once they have cooled a bit remove the jars from the water, dry and label them.

Makes 6-8 jars (depending on the size of your jars).