Tuesday, 22 January 2008

Ding Dong Merrily on High !

I know it's getting way past Christmas now, but here's a few photos of our Christmas celebrations for you. It was a year of festive firsts - first Christmas as a Mrs, first gingerbread house, first year cooking Christmas dinner.

This gateaux was my own invention - a cinnamon biscuit joconde at the bottom, with a "pain d'epices" bavarois on the top with a centre of clementine jelly made from fresh clementine juice. The top is a dark chocolate glacage, finished with white chocolate and clementines finished with a clear nappage. There is no reasoning behind the "allegro" name, other than I had to call it something and this musical term popped into my mind.

From right to left of this picture we have butter, homemade rye bread with walnuts or raisins, roquefort biscuits, caramelised pear and apple conserve from kuidaore, a selection of cheeses brought back from our christmas trip and some fig jelly made with a special find in Tesco's reduced counter.

Both sets of parents came over on Boxing Day, so we had a full house. I made, again from right to left, tart tatin, creme de menthe jellies, the allegro gateaux, a meringue based on Ispahan, a buche de noël with praline creme au beurre and finally marshmallows.
Very proud of my flower arrangement of seasonal greenery, carnatians and pussy willow ! Most of the greenery is still alive, a month later ! It's now been demoted to living in our garden though as the dining room table has been taken over by my husband's toolbox...

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