Sweet, sweet advent

Personally, I think the weeks leading up to Christmas are better than the accual holiday. The anticipation and the excitement, the cooking smells and the decorations, the lights and the music. It's too much to apprieciate in a few days, so why not savour it for a bit longer?

The whole town is getting ready for the Christmas market on Sunday. One of the local football clubs have hung all the lights up across the streets and the town gardeners have just revealed this year's centre piece: As beautiful and well composed as ever. Even the vandals and the late night ramblers usually leave it be.

Corn Flake Cakes are quick, safe and easy to make. For luxurious, lush, crispy cakes, just melt some nice cooking chocolate (or even more luxurious ones: Use Fair Trade, Organic, dark 70% chocolate, and enjoy with a light heart) and mix with Corn Flakes or Rice Crispies.

A little hotter, and very much smoother are Swedish Ice Chocolates. Don't ask me why they are called ice chocolates! It might be because they contain coconut fat and need to be kept reasonably chilled.

This week the Cubs (or the Tracker Scouts as they now are called) were producing sweet things for the Sweet raffle, one of the important and most popular things on our market stall. It got very sticky, but the kids took it very seriously, and were rewarded, after having washed their hands thoroughly, with a hot dog and marschmallows cooked by the fires outside. A scout LOVES comming home, smelling of log fire smoke!

I'm off to lovely old Oxford, England, for a few days, and will miss the market. I'll try and put the recipes, and a report from the market out when I get back at the end of next week. Have a lovely one!