In Santa's kitchen

The Challengers have been promised their own stall on the first of Advent market in town. The group has been there for ... as long as can be remembered, selling tombola tickets, sweets and hot dogs for the group. The Challengers are going to sell x-mas cakes and biscuits and all the money will go the the Challengers's own account, to finance among other things the Great Bath Tub Race in April.








So, at 11 on the Saturday everyone got together with ingredience donated by helpful parents and grandparents, to practice their baking skills under the supervision of Christian and myself. Hard toffee, butter fudge, sweet Lucia buns, swiss rolls.... The scouts worked extremely hard.






Oops! Not everything went according to plan.

I left them at seven in the evening. After that they were going to wrap everything nicely and decide on the prizing. And then play the X-box and watch a couple of films, the standard Challenger sleepover activities :-)
Not the common uniform, but very stylish!

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!

Get those gifts ready!

Christmas is only just about a month away, and it's time to start thinking about those gifts! The cubs got crafty to make those special Christmas presents for near and dear. Everyone managed to make a tea light holder out of a drinking glass and tissue paper, using decoupage, little santas out of Cernit, or Fimo, a polymer clay that could be baked in an ordinary oven. (Unfortunately containing PVC and phthalate). Most also made some spare woggles for themselves. Suddenly, there was a call from someone by the window! There was someone outside! He had red clothes, a long white beard and a lamp. He also seemed to be carrying something else. The children rushed over to have a look. The mysterious person skulking in the dark outside got startled by the knocking on the windows, but when the smiling children in the window waved to him, he waved back, left his sack, lifted his light and waved again and was gone in the dark wood by the hut. The cubs were delighted to find that the bag was filled with goodies: Gingerbread snaps, satsumas and santa marshmallows all went down a treat before it was time to go home.
Next week there will be more for the sweet tooth! Then we're making goodies for the market.