Christmas Cooking

It's that time of the year again where the kitchen starts to smell oh so yummy!

Here are a couple of snippets of Christmas cooking projects I've been up to so far...


Project Numero Uno: The 'cheat' version of elegant fruit cake (only 2 basic ingredients required)

Base ingredient #1: Hubby's Favourite Home Brand Fruit Cake... no need the fancy schancy labels, hubby still likes Home Brand the best. Slice it into small squares (approx 6 pieces)


Base ingredient #2: Ready Mix Fondant Icing. Roll it out flat to a about 2-3mm thickness


Then wrap up the little cakes in the fondant icing... this took a bit of time to perfect it, trimming the edges, smoothing the surfaces etc... but it's quite fun, like playing with play-doh


And for a special touch, add some ribbons for a lovely little pressie!


Hubby liked it very much! He said it was a classy twist to one of his favourite snacks




Project Numero Dos: Honey Glazed Ham (an impressive looking dish which is actually quite easy to prepare)

I bought a half leg of smoked ham (about 3-4 kg). You can get the full leg, but I think the half leg is massive enough already.


Remove the rind (i.e. the brown skin all over the ham) and then score the fatty layer in diamond shapes.


Then stick in whole cloves at each diamond intersection all over the ham.


Now for the glaze: mix together half cup of honey, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, 2 tablespoons of mustard, quarter cup of dry sherry

Glaze the ham with the mixture and then place into a preheated oven at about 150 degrees celcius for 1 hour or so. Glaze the ham about every 20 minutes to make it really nice and shiny.


It really looks much better than the picture. I just don't have a very good camera :(

But rest assured it was a success... how do I know??? No leftovers!!!