Rudolph Heads

We had a lovely morning thinking about and making seasonal chocolate snacks.  More to follow in a later post... but, for now, here's our idea for an intricate but fun Rudolph-styled chocolate. 

First of all, we started by melting some white and milk chocolate chips in small plastic bags.  Once the chocolate was melted, a corner of the bag was cut and the chocolate was 'piped' onto some baking parchment in antler shapes.  These were then put in the fridge to chill and set.

At this point, it's worth mentioning that the white chocolate antlers were far from successful so we were not hopeful of a positive outcome when trying to use them!

Whilst the antlers were setting, we took a chocolate log chocolate truffle (ours were pre-packed Alpinis from Thornton's which state 'no gluten containing ingredients' but realise the cross contamination risk may be too great for coeliacs) and put a small dab of chocolate on one end.  We then placed a small, red sugar decoration on the chocolate to serve as Rudolph's nose.

Next was the tricky task of antler attachment.  Placing the truffle log on end, a generous blob of chocolate was put on the end and two, now solid, chocolate antlers were attached.

Adding some silver balls as eyes, using dabs of chocolate as glue, we had created our Rudolphs.

We won't suggest this is anything other than a fiddly undertaking but Sous Chef J had fun and we were both pleased with the results!

They'd make a lovely gift or sweet treat with a coffee or cuppa.

Festive FreeFrom Fare

We like to be prepared for the Festive Season in plenty of time, so were pleased when Sainsbury's sent us a parcel of FreeFrom goodies from their range to try.

There were two types of  mince pies - the 'traditional' pastry topped ones and also a packet of iced pies.  Sous Chef J likes the look of the iced mince pies the best as he's "not keen on too much pastry".

The box of goodies also contained a panettone style loaf cake.  It was a softer cake than we were expecting, but there was a good distribution of fruit and was a tasty treat.

 Also included were two packs of cake slices - both contain 5 slices - one has Iced rich fruit cake and the other Mini chocolate logs.  The Iced fruit cake slices seem to

have a good proportion of cake to icing.  Looking at the Mini chocolate logs, they're more of an iced slice than a log shape but Sous Chef J thinks that won't stop him eating them. All!

It was good to see some products aimed at children included in the range.  Sadly the Gingerbread biscuit man hadn't survived the post in tact but Sous Chef J had a solution for that... and promptly ate the biscuit.

The Freefrom Santa Choc bar is Gluten, Wheat and dairy free and would make a great stocking filler.  Also, the choc selection net, which contains a santa choc bar, choc'n'crispie bar, choc bar, choc buttons and choc discs, looks like a treat that will fill a space in a Christmas stocking nicely.

Whilst it's been nice to get a pre-Seasonal goodie box, we'll be 'monitoring' the goods on sale in store as "reliability of availability" is something we harp on about a lot.  It's great to know Gluten Free Christmas food items exist but is doubly frustrating when you can't get hold of them.

Checking our local store this week, we saw all the items we were sent apart from the Selection net.  We were pleased to see there was also a FreeFrom Advent Calendar, Christmas Cake Loaf and also a Christmas Pudding on sale.


Disclosure - Sainsbury's sent us a selection of FreeFrom items without charge but we have not been paid for this post.