Chocolate layered fudge and Christmas in Melbourne

So today is 40 C and I foolishly decided to photograph the fudge I made yesterday.  Despite coming out of the fridge, it was still melting as I handled it.  However, the hot weather was my excuse to make the fudge.  I had bought some bags of choc chips in the Christmas spirit and then lost my mojo for making presents with it.  Instead I turned it into fudge because, as we all know, fudge from the fridge tastes much better than chocolate from the fridge.

The other two reasons I wanted to make fudge were that it is quick and easy (and my throat was so sore yesterday but a bit better today) and I didn't need to turn on the oven to make it.  The hardest part about making it was trying not to eat the mixture.  (Well making neat layers was a bit challenging.) It was a fun activity to share with Sylvia.

We went to her kinder Christmas party last night but we got there late, we forgot to take the Christmas cards and it was hot, noisy and crowded.  It was a relief to leave.  (I did love the little tealight holders Sylvia had made us as presents and the kids singing Deck the Sheds with Bits of Wattle.)  Then on to another Christmas party at our local neighbourhood house.  This was far more relaxed.  We sat outside singing carols under the gaze of the majestic gum trees in the neighbouring park.  Much more my sort of celebration.

Yes Christmas in Australia is different to a European Christmas.  Last year we were in Edinburgh just prior to Christmas enjoying festive lights on dark nights, winter woollens, festooned pubs and cosy dinners.  It is not just the warm long nights that are different here.  It is the lack of decorations.  They are minimal in most places.

The shops in Melbourne have very little in the way of Christmas in their windows.  Some token modern stars or an apologetically stylised picture of a tree is often the way.  In one department store I found a nice Christmas tree but it had unwrapped gifts beneath with loud price tags on them.  A little bit of humour is always welcome.  I had a good laugh at the ocker nature of the above Christmas advertisement I found in one window.

To be fair the Melbourne City Council has a nice Christmas village in the City Square.  We went there earlier in the week after a wander through St Paul's Cathedral.  The City Square has a queue to see Santa but we didn't bother.  Much better was the little interactive activity where the kids had a piece of paper with empty reindeer stalls and had to stamp the paper at the right coloured reindeer.  For their efforts they were rewarded with a little certificate and a tattoo.  Good simple fun.

Above is the Christmas tree in the City Square.  I quite liked it.  It managed to be modern without being too devoid of fun and colour.  I prefer a traditional Christmas tree like the one below, which is in the Babushka Shop  in the Royal Arcade.

I think the Royal Arcade (off Bourke Street Mall) is probably my favourite place to go to see Christmas decorations in the city.  It is such a beautiful historic arcade and had Christmas decorations to match the vintage.  Quite a few of the shops are quite Christmassy.  You can buy beautiful decorations in the Babushka Shop, lovely gifts in Westminster and snowman chocolates at Koko Black.  Then marvel at the dolls house complete with Christmas tree in the window of Jasper Junior.

I loved this macaron Christmas tree at the The Little Royal in the Royal Aracade.

I am sending this foodie Christmas tree photo to Jacqueline for the Festive Photos edition of No Croutons Required (NCR).  NCR is a vegetarian soup and salad blog even but each year in December Jacqueline calls for festive photos and there are always lots of lovely photos to admire. 

I also really liked this little window display in the Royal Arcade.  If you are after visiting other Christmas displays in Melbourne, my mum tells me there are some really lovely decorations in banks on Collins Street between Elizabeth Street and Queen Street.  All I could find online was a picture of a tree at 333 Collins Street (which I don't think is a bank).  And there is also the Gingerbread Village and the Myer Christmas Windows.

So whether you want to have a little holiday treat in your fridge or some gifts to give out, these layers of chocolate fudge will be perfect.  They are particularly suited to the warm Australian Christmas as long as they don't spend too long out of the fridge under the tree.  But they would be welcome in any weather.  I warn you though, it is very hard to stop at one.

I am sending these layered chocolate to Tea Time Treats hosted by Kate from What Kate Baked and co-hosted by Karen from Lavender and Lovage. The theme this month is Festive Food.

The fudge also makes a nice wee bite so I am sending them to Treat Petite hosted by Stuart from Cakeyboi and co-hosted by Kat from the Baking Explorer. The theme for December is Happy Holidays.

Finally I am sending them for a Kids Christmas theme to Family Foodies hosted by Louisa from Eat Your Veg and Vanesther from Bangers and Mash.

Previously on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
One year ago: Edinburgh Larder and the National Museum
Two years ago: Buttermilk bread
Three years ago: Hotel Lincoln: genial gastropub
Four years ago: The Witchery - Scottish Fine Dining
Five years ago: Tree, Tarts and Punch
Six years ago: Nutroast for dinosaurs

Chocolate layered fudge
Peppermint layer from Taste of Home, Caramel layer adapted.

400g tin of condensed milk
250g dark choc chips

Peppermint layer:
250g white choc chips
3 tsp peppermint essence
few drops green food dye

OR

Caramel layer:
250g caramel bits

Put about 3/4 of condensed milk and all dark choc chips in a small microwave-proof mixing bowl.  Heat until just melted.  It only took 1 minute in my microwave (not a very powerful one).  Mix well until glossy.  It should be fairly thick.

Line a 15cm square baking tin with baking paper.  Spread half the chocolate mixture in it.  Place in freezer while you prepare next layer.  Set remaining chocolate mixture aside.

Mix and melt remaining condensed milk with either white choc chips or caramel bits (depending on if you want a peppermint or caramel middle layer).  This only took about 45 seconds for me.  Mix well and if making peppermint layer, mix in peppermint essence and food dye.

Remove chocolate mixture from freezer and spread middle layer on it.  The bottom layer should have firmed up and the middle layer should be fairly thick and resist stirring.  Return to freezer to firm up for 5 to 10 minutes.  Now remove again and spread remaining chocolate mixture on top.  (I didn't have to warm up my chocolate mixture but it was quite thick to spread.)

Firm up in the fridge for 4 to 6 hours and then cut into small squares.  I found with the peppermint squares I had to clean the knife after each cut or it left brown marks on the green layer.  Keep in the fridge.

On the Stereo:
White Christmas: Bing Crosby

Gingerbread village and other gingerbread

It seems there is quite a lot of gingerbread in my Christmas this year.  As I am under the weather, I thought I would give a quick gingerbread tour, including the Gingerbread Village at the Melbourne Town Hall.  Above are some gingerbread gift boxes we will be giving tomorrow.

We went to see the Myer Christmas windows a few weeks back.  For the out-of-towners, this is a Melbourne tradition.  I used to go and see the department store windows with their lights and moving characters each year as a child. 

These days they seem to focus on a book rather than a theme, which means they are selling a commodity rather than celebrating Christmas.  This year the book is Gingerbread Friends.  The displays were fun but the reading of each page of the book at each window really slowed the crowd down as the queue snaked along past the windows.

Inside Myer is a gingerbread theme in the children's clothing.  I have seen a picture of a kid with a cardboard box decorated as a gingerbread house on Pinterest.  These cardboard houses look like the sort of thing I would love to make if I had the time and space.

Yesterday Sylvia and I went to the city and visited the Gingerbread Village at the Melbourne Town Hall.  It was both amazing and slightly disappointing.  Amazing because of all the detail, especially in Melbourne icons that I recognised.  Slightly disappointing because it was so much smaller than I had expected.  (What was I thinking!  The amount of work for the display was incredible!)

The lighting also was so dim that it made it really hard to take photos.  So dark that I had to use the flash in the Luna Park photo.  (Though not in the other photos.)  Luna Park is a fun fair in St Kilda, a seaside suburb of Melbourne.  The model had the big dipper, the roundabout, clowns and carnival food.

Even more iconic than Luna Park is the MCG.  (The Melbourne Cricket Ground if you want to be proper or the G if you go there a lot!)  How amazing that this gingerbread model included the light towers lit up and the footy players in the middle of a game.  Yes the attention to detail was fantastic.

As well as Melbourne icons, there was the generic snowy scenes that are not seen in a Melbourne Christmas but that many of us still think of when we think of Christmas.

I loved Santa and his reindeer on the rooftops in this scene.

This gingerbread Melbourne Town Hall had the artistic licence of being in the snow and having a train line whizz by out the front.  They would have been more accurate to have trams and tourist horse and carts going by on dusty dry roads.  But gingerbread houses are never about reality, are they?

I loved the details here in this row of shops.  Little loaves of bread and kebabs and cheese.  At the end of this row of shops was the Melbourne Arts Centre complete with the spire.  Unfortunately, like the Melbourne Zoo the lighting made it hard to photograph so you will just have to imagine it.

Finally, in my kitchen we have had more gingerbread stars.  Despite lots of fanciful notions about making all sorts of other foodie gifts, I decided to make my favourite gingerbread recipe.  Sylvia had fun with the sprinkles and I tried out a new silicone icing bag.  We are packaging some stars in the gingrebread gift boxes (top photo) and other individual ones into cellophane bags.

So after all this gingerbread, I am hoping that I might make my own gingerbread house this year.  However it depends on the weather and my energy levels.  I hadn't planned on being poorly this week and having the temperature soar to 40 C on the day I planned to bake.  I am still hoping I might mange it.  Stay tuned....

10 Foodie Christmas Gift Ideas

It is only 10 days to Christmas.  So perhaps it is fitting that tonight I bring you 10 Foodie Christmas Gift Ideas.  This builds on my previous Christmas gifts posts but is more extensive.  I actually planned this post last year and never finished it so it has had time to brew and grow.  I have divided the post into ten gift categories (or ideas) with links from my own blog and from elsewhere.  I hope you will find something in here to inspire you. 

Savoury crackers
Cheeze crackers (v)
Chickpea crackers (gf, v)
Polenta parmesan thyme crackers (gf)
Scottish oatcakes
Smoky cheese biscuits 
Spinach crackers with French lavender salt (v)

From other bloggers:
Blue cheese cranberry and pistachio crackers - Not Quite Nigella
Cheese and walnut shortbread - Laws of the Kitchen
Crunchy sticks and branches - Ricki Heller
Olive oil parmesan crackers - City Hippy Farm Girl
Seed crackers - Nourish Me
Stilton and rosemary shortbread - Closet Cooking
Sweet potato cheddar crackers - Completely Delicious

More savoury ideas: marinades, infusions, salts and sauces
Celery salt (gf, v)
French lavender salt (gf, v) 
Raspberry vinegar (gf, v)
Red wine sauce (gf, v)
Rhubarb dipping sauce (gf, v)
Smoky seedy coconut bacon nuts (gf, v)
Worcestershire Sauce (gf, v)

From other bloggers:
Chilli lime salt - The Kitchn
Citrus salt - 101 Cookbooks
Gomasio (sesame salt) - Fanatic Cook
Herb wreath - Steps on the Journey
Marinated olives - Lavender and Lovage
Peach BBQ Sauce - Food is my Friend
Spiced nuts - Laws of the Kitchen
Spicy home made mustard - The Vegan Ronin
Taco seasoning - Joy the Baker
Welsh Rarebit Cheese Spread - Lavender and Lovage 

Jams and Chutneys
Apple and cranberry chutney (gf, v)
Apricot chutney (gf, v)
Beetroot and orange chutney (gf, v)
Pear and walnut chutney (gf, v)
Plum chutney (gf, v)
Plum jam (gf, v)
Rhubarb and strawberry jam (gf,v)
Tomato chutney with cranberries (gf, v)

From other bloggers:
Apple pear and passionfruit chutney - Tinned Tomatoes
Christmas chutney -  The Kitchen Maid
Onion marmalade - Fig Jame and Lime Cordial
Rhubarb and blackberry jam - Fig Jam and Lime Cordial
Strawberry and peach jam - Tinned Tomatoes

Sweet biscuits
ANZAC biscuits with cranberries and chocolate (v) 
Chocolate and cranberry shortbread
Chocolate macaroons (v, gf)
Gingerbread
Gingerbread choc chip cookies
Florentines
Lebkuchen  
Maple walnut cookies (v)
Shortbread
Walnut and quince thumbprint cookies (v)
Zimsterne (cinnamon Ssars) (gf, v)

From other bloggers:
Chocolate gingerbread gingersnap cookies - White on Rice Couple
Christmas Cookies - amazing amounts of links from Food Blogga
Cranberry orange pinwheels - Baked by Rachel
Gluten free and vegan graham crackers - Oh She Glows
Healthy Christmas Cookies - Candida Diet Plan
Iced spice biscuits - Bite Sized Thoughts
Mexican hot chocolate snickerdoodles - Culinary in the Country
Polish spice biscuits - Chocolate Log Blog

Christmas cakes, bakes and puddings
Chocolate fruitcake
Chocolate mince tarts
Chocolate panforte
Christmas pudding
Christmas pudding bites
Fruitcake with chocolate chunks
Gingerbread house 

From other bloggers:
Christmas marzipan cake - Butcher Baker
Panettone with chocolate, clementine and walnut - Franglais Kitchen
Raw mini Christmas puddings - Cate's Cates
Stollen - David Lebowitz

Chocolates and Fudge
Chocolate gingernut truffles 
Chocolate layered fudge (gf)
Chocolates with peppermint filling (gf, v)
Chocolate salami (gf, v)
Nutella fudge 
Orange and sweet potato filled chocolates (gf, v)
Pink rocky road (gf)
Rocky road (gf, v)
Vegan bacon and seed chocolate bark (gf, v)

From other bloggers:
Candied orange peel dipped in chocolate - Chocolate Log Blog 
Oreo topped peanut butter fudge - Wayfaring Chocolate
Peppermint chocolate bark - Bite Sized Thoughts
Turtle bark - Bakers Royale
Cookie cutter fudge - Chocolate Moosey 

Other sweet treats
Apricot delight (gf, v)
Coconut ice (gf)
Grubs (gf)
Walnut and coconut fudge balls (gf, v)
White Christmas

From other bloggers and websites:
Gingerbread almond butter - Wayfaring Chocolate
Gingerbread caramel popcorn - Heather Christo
Peanut butter and chocolate popcorn - natural sweet recipes
Pumpkin candied popcorn - The Gracious Pantry
Scottish macaroon snowballs - Baby Centre
Sesame snaps - Not Quite Nigella
Spiced sugar Christmas popcorn - Jamie Oliver

Drinks
Lemonade (gf, v)
Limeade (gf, v)
Spiced red currant and orange punch (gf, v)

From other bloggers and websites:
Candy cane peppermint hot chocolate spoons - Turquoise and Lemons
Ginger ale - Simply Recipes
Mulled wine kit - BBC Good Food
Mulled wine sachet - Homemade gifts made easy
Mulled wine syrup - What Kate Baked
Salted caramel hot chocolate mix - Seeded at the table

Ready to make - burgers, pancakes, cookies
None on my blog but wouldn't it be great to make a ready-to-make-nut-roast

From other bloggers:
Bean burger mixture - Where's the Beef?
Coconut curry lentil soup - Tiffin Bite Sized Food Adventures
Cowgirl cookies - Bakerella
Oat almond chocolate chunk cookies (v) - Vegan Richa
Pancake mix with apple cider syrup and candied walnuts - Tora's Real Food
Punk Rock cookie jar mixes - Post Punk Kitchen
Cocoa blocks for hot chocolate - King Arthur
Instant oatmeal pots - Gluten Free Alchemist

Inedible foodie gifts
Bath bombs
Playdough
Salt dough Easter eggs (or Christmas decorations)

From other bloggers:
Bath bomb cupcakes -  the taste space
Chocolate olive oil body scrub - The Kitchen Maid 
Lemon sugar hand scrub  - Stephanie Lynn
Moisturiser - Broke and Healthy
Peppermint foot scrub - Turquoise Lemons
Pomanders - Pioneer thinking
Salt dough stars  - Red Ted Art
Spice bags - Don't Boil the Sauce
Vanilla mint sugar scrub - Food and Swine
Vanilla sugar body scrub - Freutcake

Chocolate mince tarts

Christmas divides us into two groups.  Those who love mince tarts and those who don't.  For me, it isn't Christmas without a mince tart.   Yet I have been seeking chocolate in my mince tarts in recent years.  I have a vision in my head that I must have seen once.  That filled me with desire.  I think I might have just found it today.

It is not that mince tarts that fill my imagination as the festive season gathers pace.  I have much festive baking I hope to do if only the weather and time are kind to me.  Mince tarts are an excellent start.  Last year I made mince tarts with chocolate chunks in them.  They were good but it wasn't enough chocolate.  I wanted a chocolate pastry.

It is not just the taste but the aesthetic.  These brown stars have a dark rich allure that a pale pastry just can't offer.  Don't you think?  I know that it will horrify the purists.  It is not intended to be traditional.  These mince tarts are to please the chocoholics like myself. 

I like fruit mince but I don't eat a lot of it.  The chocolate helped motivate me to use up the remaining fruit mince from last year's batch.  Was I tired of seeing it in the fridge!  At least I could be proud that my fruit mince lasted that long.

I made these mince tarts this morning along with jam (coming soon) and sourdough bread.  I then had lunch with a friend at Little Deer Tracks .  After a fine risotto we came back to my place for a cuppa and a chocolate mince tart.  I wasn't quite sure I got it right. 

I met E for dinner in Carlton and went to the Cinema Nova to see Night Train to Lisbon.  It was a very beautiful film with an intriguing story that unravelled at a suitably leisurely pace.  We think I might have been the youngest person in the cinema.  It is that sort of movie. 

We came home and had a cuppa and a mince tart.  This time I really enjoyed the taste of the chocolate in the pastry and the chunks in the filling.  The pastry was buttery and short.  They were as good as I had hoped it might be.  Aalmost good enough to tempt me to make more fruit mince.  Almost.  I just don't think I could bear to have fruit mince greeting me every time I open the fridge for another year.

While we are on the subject of Christmas I thought I would share bit more Christmas cheer.  Above are two advent calenders.  On the right is one that has little numbers by each hole.  Each day we add another peg to build up the nativity scene.  On the left is a calender with little pockets.  This year it is working to fill them with the nativity pegs.  Sylvia is really enjoying adding the pegs each day.  Jesus had made a few outings already though and she keeps asking when he will be born.

We also had a craft session to make Christmas cards for Sylvia's kinder friends.  Sylvia helped me paint the shapes with colours and glitter glue.  Then I attached ribbons and glued them to cards while she was feeling ill this week.  Thanks to Red Ted Art Blog for the idea.

I am sending these chocolate mince tarts to Choclette for We Should Cocoa.  The theme for this blog event is chocolate and alcohol.  The fruit mince has whiskey in it so hopefully this will fit the bill. Now I am off to clear a space for my Christmas tree.  We will be decking the halls this weekend, so to speak!

Previously on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
One year ago: A vegetarian Christmas dinner in Scotland
Two years ago: CC Chesapeake tempeh cakes for carols
Three years ago: Carols, Camels and Pate
Four years ago: Christmas Nut Roast in Scotland
Five years ago: Lentil Loaf with Chutney
Six years ago: SHF #38 Christmas Pudding

Chocolate mince tarts
From Nestle's Bakers Corner
made me about 10-12 mince tarts *

125g cold butter, chopped
1 and 1/4 cup (185g) plain flour
1/3 cup (55g) icing sugar
1/4 cup (25g) cocoa
1 egg yolk
1-2 tbsp water, or as required
1 cup of fruit mince (I use this one) 
1/4 cup (45g) dark choc chips
extra icing sugar for dusting

Place butter, flour, icing sugar and cocoa in food processor and blitz til you get the texture of fine breadcrumbs.  Add egg yolk and 1 tablespoon of water until the mixture becomes a ball of pastry.  If too crumbly add another tablespoon of water (1 tbsp was enough for me).  Wrap pastry in clingwrap and leave in the fridge for about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 200 C.  Take the pastry from the fridge, unwrap and place between two sheets of baking paper.  Roll out to about 3mm thick (I think some of mine was thicker) and cut into circles to line greased patty pan (little cake) tin.  Mix fruit mince with choc chips and fill each circle with fruit mince mixture.  Cut out stars and place on top of fruit mince. 

Bake for about 25 minutes or until the pastry is crisp and smells cooked.  Cool on a wire rack.  Keep in an airtight container.  Dust with icing sugar to serve.

* The Baking Corner recipe said it would make 24 mince tarts but mine only made 9 with a few scraps of pastry leftover.  I am not sure I rolled the pastry out thinly enough but it seemed ok when we tasted the tarts.  Their recipe called for more fruit mince but my little tub was enough for 9.

On the Stereo:
Christmas - Low

Garden Update December 2013

It has been some time since I last did a garden update.  I do my best to take care of my garden but it doesn't inspire the same excitment that my kitchen does.  Unless there is fruit and colour.  In particular, blueberries! 

Yes you heard me.  We are growing blueberries!  Sylvia asked and our garden guru, my mum, bought her a pot.  They are not starting to turn blue and it is very exciting.  My mum has also kindly bought Sylvia a tomato plant that is showing some hopeful signs (to the right of the blueberry plant) and helped me nurse my ailing lavender plant (to the left).  After looking quite scruffy, I am pleased to see a few lavender flowers again.

Before exploring more of the backyard, let me take you on a little tour of some of the flowers in our front garden.  Yes I know one of the below photos is not of flowers but I included it because we had one of these trees in our garden when I was a child and always called the leaves bananas so it is a bit sentimental.

My mum does a lot to keep the roses flourishing outside our front door.  She knows when to deadhead and feed and prune.  I just do the odd bit of weeding.  Sadly the rose bushes are past their first bloom of spring but you can still see a few in the above photos.

On a rare occasion you can see Dolly in the garden drying off after a bath in the bathroom sink.  I love seeing her looking clean but it doesn't take long for Sylvia to get her dirty.  Nothing like feeding her watermelon and giving her a going over with textas (marker pens) to make her look very loved.

Less vigorous has been our lemon tree.  It yielded a low crop of lemons last year and the leaves have been yellowing.  My mum has given it some extra potting mix and I have started feeding it with Seasol plant tonic every fortnight.  (I am trying to give the whole garden some Seasol every fortnight after seeing Miss Piggy mention using it on her balcony garden.)  I think this TLC is starting to help.

The little baby lemons growing on the tree right now are promising to yield far more lemons than last year.  I take that as a good sign that the lemon tree is doing far better.

Unfortunately on both the lemon and lime tree, I have been cutting off gall wasp lately.  This is a little insect that buries itself inside the branches (see the little lump above) and will do bad things to a tree.  I wish I could tell you more but I am no green thumb.

Meanwhile the lime tree, which was always the puny one of my two citrus trees, is now the flourishing one.  It had a great crop last year and has so many little limes this year that Sylvia keeps dancing around the yard singing about all the limeade we will make.  It has lost quite a lot of leaves lately but has lots of new growth.

As well as all the new and fruity plants, the old regulars are doing nicely.  The camelia bush (just behind the lime tree in above photo) has been flowering regularly.  Recently it was looking quite weedy but has perked up and is growing well.

The mint continues to be like one of those scary cartoon characters who refuses to die no matter how badly they are treated.  No matter how much I forget to water it and it looks like it is on its last legs, it always bounces back.  It even grows in two pots now after some colonisation.

My other hardy potted herbs are rosemary, thyme and bay leaves.  I have tried growing sage and parsley, both of which I love and neither have taken.  (Kale, spinach and rainbow chard have also come and gone in my garden.)  I have occasionally had basil but it never lasts long.  Wheras the rosemary, thyme and bay leaves just keep on doing their thing no matter what.  I don't use them heaps but it is great when I want a bouquet garni. 

So there is my garden, green and thriving in our recent bouts of warm weather and cold rainy days.  I feel a wee bit protective of it when I think of the hot weather that we usually have to endure over summer.  At least I have more confidence these days, knowing it has withstood quite some years of scorching summers and hopefully will survive this one.  Now I just have to hope the birds don't eat the blueberries.