Apricots Stuffed with Marzipan and Covered in Chocolate

Since it is past the whole Christmas thing, I can now reveal something that I prepared as a Christmas present for my brother and his girlfriend. The last time I made something covered in chocolate was in January and I completely forgot that it was actually pretty easy. I wanted the present to be quite different from the classic Christmas cookies and feel like something better than just chocolate covered fruit.

Taking the recipe from Delicious Gifts by Jess McCloskey that I got last year, I knew that the extra marzipan and cognac will make my present special. I didn't know though that the result of such a simple recipe would make a deliciously chewy chocolate treat that will put any store bought box of chocolates to shame.

In the end, they were a great success. Their only flaw was that they disappeared too quickly and that there was only 20 of them but since they are so easy to make, I might just make some more in a very near future :)

Mince Pies

My first encounter with mincemeat pies was several years ago in Britain (where else?) as Christmas drew closer. They were store-bought but still they were delicious. When I visited Britain again this November, mincemeat pie was one of the first things I purchased and it still tasted as good as I remembered.

I realized it can’t be that difficult to make mincemeat pies of my own, after all I know more or less show to make pies and the filling couldn't be too hard to make. As I looked into the ingredients for the filling, I learned about its history as well. Originally traced back to the Crusades, it seems the pie was brought back to Britain from the Middle East. The recipe used to contain mutton or beef meat with spices and fruit but nowadays the meat tends to be omitted. Some people use beef fat instead of butter for the filling so that „the meat part“ is kept in the recipe but since I'm not such a big fan of animal fat in baking, I decided to stick to using butter.

Lokum

When I had my latest CouchSurfing guest over last month, a guy from Turkey, I asked him what do Turks bake traditionally that could be reproduced elsewhere in the world. Apparently, baking is not a big thing in Turkey but they do a lot of different stuff. Like Lokum which is also known as Turkish Delight to the western world. Similarly to muffins, lokum is a type of a dessert that can be made with different ingredients.

I've had Turkish Delight before and I was never too crazy about it (though I made cupcakes from it once and those were great), it just tasted too... artificial to me. I was surprised how mine turned out. The artificial "too sweet" flavour was nowhere to be found and although the rose water flavour was a bit strong (I halved it for the final recipe), my Lokum was delicious and perfectly fitted my idea of a non-traditional Christmas cookie. And while not technically being baked, I was willing to make an exception and publish it here because, in the end, I was quite proud of what I was able to make. :)