On sweet things...

In between all the sewing, there's been a lot of baking going on in our house. My daughter recently bought The Great British Bake Off Cookbook; a book which she took to bed with her for several nights, so captivating were its pages! She's made several things from it, but when we had some friends coming over for dinner one evening, I snaffled it away for myself and made these chocolate and pistachio smothered brandy snaps.

I hadn't made brandy snaps before and they were featured as Mary Berry's 'Technical Challenge' in the book. There's a lovely process to make them: starting with making the mixture, then baking small flattened balls of it in the oven in small batches....

...before unpeeling the cooked mixture from the tray and wrapping it around an oiled wooden handle before it cools.

And finally, once hard, they can be dipped in melted chocolate and rolled in crushed pistachio pieces. They were simpler and far more fun to make than I'd expected, however, I made them again this weekend and, distracted by having lots of people in the room, I forgot to flatten the balls down and they didn't look as appealing as these ones, so perhaps I had some beginner's luck the first time.

However, taste wise, I'm not sure that the recipe for the Wholemeal Honey Cake that Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall shares in his Guardian column can be beaten - my daughter made this a few weeks ago on Nancy's recommendation and it is a cake that left a grown man nearly weeping with happiness as he ate it. I have bought her the River Cottage Cakes handbook as one of her Christmas gifts on the basis of how well loved this cake was (the recipe was devised by River Cottage's head chef).

In amongst other things there may have also been some chocolate mice...

And some stained glass window biscuits - again, made by my daughter.

Have you found yourself carried along in a floury frenzy of Christmas baking? This time of year always makes me feel particularly kitcheny...

Florence x