Christmas Baking

We normally have 3 Christmas dinners - all roast turkey! The first was the Tuesday before with Russell's Dad and his wife. The second was Christmas eve at our place. Here's desert - a fruit tart. The best thing about a summer Christmas has to be summer fruit - peaches, nectarines, cherries, grapes...

This tart was delicious - short crust filled with creme patisserie and fresh fruit.This was my second attempt at the pastry and the cause of my pre-Christmas tantrum! I'm not keen on making pastry and usually use frozen stuff. The first batch came together beautifully. On the second attempt I got it in the flan tin. Then blind baked and rebaked. Everything was going perfectly. Until I rushed getting it out of the dish. I was saying goodbye to Rainbow and giving shopping instructions to Russell and I rushed it. I knocked it as I lifted it out and knocked off two pieces of the crust. Even my naturally cold hand couldn't fight against the midday heat for the second attempt and it had to be refrigerated before it could be rolled out.

By 6am Christmas morning the presents brought by Santa were opened. Rainbow had raced around to check that Santa had eaten his snack and the reindeers theirs. Rainbow was bouncing on her trampoline and I was baking Nigella's Christmas Morning Muffins with Craisins. I had a head start sieving all the dry ingredients as I waited for Rainbow to fall asleep so I could do Christmassy things on Christmas Eve. These are now Russell's favourite muffins ever because they were crispy on the outside. I liked them warm with butter. Rainbow wasn't too keen and toothless Moonshine had difficulty with the craisins.

Now you may remember in late November I made the Christmas pudding to take to my parents. Well it's been a strange week. On Christmas eve both my father and Grandfather ended up having surgery so plans changed and we decided we'd have afternoon tea in the holiday for Christmas. So in readiness I decorated the Christmas cake to take.

Then Mum calls on Christmas morning and plans changed again. Both were released but turkey was still frozen. So we had a Christmas bbq and will have the turkey and pudding later this week. I had five egg whites left over from the creme patisserie so I whipped up a pavlova topped with cream and more lovely summer fruit. This is Jamie Oliver's recipe. It is amazing. It has the perfect crunchy outside and soft marshmallow inside. I'm not sure what makes his recipe so good. I think it's the 14 + minutes of beating. Don't be put off by the beating. It is a really easy fool-proof recipe. I wish Russell and Rainbow would eat it as I would make it all the time.