Well it is that time again! You either love it or hate it – a bit like marmite?? Time to get the Christmas tunes on, get creative and think about what bakes I would like to offer for Christmas this year 🙂 The Christmas Bakes list could just go on and on but being a home baker, going solo, I have to think what I can actually do in my kitchen on the run up to Christmas. Not only can I prepare some goodies in advance and store them ready for customers such as the Christmas Cakes and Chocolate Treats but I have to fit in my normal family life and having four children to think about takes a lot of planning at Christmas.
So far, I have organised my supermarket delivery slot for Christmas week so fingers crossed I don’t have lots of substitutions like I usually do but I am expecting some 🙂 The Christmas shopping is moving slowly along as I am usually so much organised by now. Not sure why but I am starting to feel stressed and I can feel the tension in my neck and shoulders as I type (may be due to the painting I have been doing this last week or the major cleaning I have done) but I am blaming it on the lack of Christmas shopping I have done so far. I have plans this week though so as long as I can stay awake at night after the children have gone to bed I am hoping my husband and I can make some plans and place some orders. 🙂
As we have recently moved house this will be our first Christmas here which feels strange but I am sure it will work out okay. My hiding places are in my head and I am not sharing on here as I am sure my daughters sometimes read my blog posts (just to understand what sort of day I have had I think??) You can tell a lot from a blog post you know !!
Baking this last week, has involved lots of Empire Biscuits, a couple of Christmas Cakes and my first batch of Sweet Mince Pies (which I love baking). This order alone has put me in the festive mood so much so that I have ordered single cream ready for my own Sweet Mince Pies which I will be baking tomorrow 🙂
My creative ideas this week were how to present my Christmas Bakes in the form of gifts which are postable to customers in the UK, as well as, available to be collected from my door. I know I had large jars with screw top lids in storage from when we moved house so I thought I would set about baking and making some ideas to try in the jars – make some videos (with the help of my new tripod so I don’t need to rely on a daughter anymore), take lots of photos and share what I have available and what I can do this Christmas.
The jars I have are large enough to hold about 12 pieces of Homemade Fudge or Brownies or 6 pieces of Christmas Cake. These jars are plastic with screw top lids but they are recyclable. You can use them after your gifts arrive for storage in your house or as a gift jar for someone else. I have some in my office with ribbons, food glitters and so on in them. They are a good size jar so the choice is endless. I know plastic is not good for the environment but I bought these jars as they were made from recycled plastics and I think plastic is safer for travelling rather than glass jars. 🙂
Well, I hope I have whetted your appetite and helped to put you in the Christmas mood 🙂 I am off to do a few behind the scenes jobs and grab a cuppa over at my Mam’s house :). I will be adding the gift ideas to the webshop very soon so please keep watching for more details 🙂