Fancy Dress Outfitters

Recently I was contacted by fancydressoutfitters and asked if the boys would like to review some of their children's Christmas dressing up outfits. I accepted and then took on the task of choosing 3 costumes that I thought the boys would like. This was quite hard as there are were many to choose from. Eventually I decided on a Shepherds outfit for Callum (for his school play tomorrow), Nathan an elves costume and James a cracker outfit.

When I first told the boys that I had been sent these costumes I was met with mixed feelings, Callum thought it was great as he gets to show it off at school in his play, Nathan detested the idea and didn't even want to try his on and James was none the wiser and couldn't care less (lets face it what two year old boy is bothered about clothes and dressing up). However once the costumes arrived Nathan and James' attitudes changed, Nathan thought his costume was great and wants to wear it to his Christmas party next week and James' keeps asking to be a cracker.

The fancydressoutfitters website has lots of different costumes to choose from and to suit any budget with Christmas outfits starting at £4.99 to £18.99, the boys outfits cost £16.99 for the Shepard costume, £11.49 for James' cracker and £9.99 for Nathan's Elf outfit. The costumes are very well made and the quality is superb.
My boys are quite tall for their ages and all the outfits that I asked for fit them comfortably with plenty of room for them to move about in.

fancydressoutfitters don't just sell Christmas outfits, they sell a wide range of both adult and children's fancy dress outfits for any occasion, I will certainly be looking them up for any outfits we may need in the future.

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Estonian recipes: thick fruit soup (dried fruit kissel)

One non-Christmas recipe for a change :) Paks puuviljakissell or thick (dried) fruit soup/kissel is an old Estonian favourite (I've previously blogged about it's more modest cousin, raisin fruit soup). The kissel on the photo was made with dried apricots, prunes, pears and raisins, but you can use whatever fruit you have in hand. It's cheap, tasty and easy to make.

You can also serve it in umpteen ways. Traditional way to serve fruit soup is with milk (or perhaps light cream), but you can top a thick fruit soup with whipped cream or even good-quality vanilla ice cream, which would make it actually a rather festive pudding, especially if served from pretty dessert bowls.

Dried fruit soup
(Paks puuviljakissell)
Serves 6

500 g dried fruit and berries of your choice - apples, pears, prunes, seedless raisins, apricots etc.
1.5 litre of water
a cinnamon stick
2 cloves
85 g caster sugar (100 ml)
juice of half a lemon
2 to 3 Tbsp potato starch or cornflour + some cold water (see note below)

Rinse the dried fruit under cold water, then cut into smaller pieces, if necessary.
Place into a large saucepan with water and let them soak for 2-3 hours.
Add the cinnamon stick and cloves. Bring the "soup" into a boil, reduce heat and simmer slowly until the fruit is softened. Near the end of the cooking, add the sugar and season to taste with lemon juice.
To thicken the soup, make a slurry with starch and some cold water. Drizzle the starch slurry into the fruit soup, stirring carefully. If you are using potato starch, then re-heat the fruit soup and remove from the heat as soon as the first bubbles appear on surface - do NOT boil. If you're using cornflour, then you need to cook the soup for a few minutes for it to thicken.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and sprinkle some sugar on top - this prevents the "skin" from forming on top.

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Black Pudding Profiteroles

August 2011

This recipe was originally posted in December 2009. It's been fully updated, and new photos are included.

Remember the Chorizo Choux Puffs? When I published the recipe on my Estonian site, then one of the readers, Ilse, suggested using our Christmas favourite, finely chopped black pudding instead of chorizo. I liked the sound of that, so nicked the idea, adding a spoonful of roasted onion flakes for an extra depth of flavour.

The result? Soft and Christmassy choux puffs with character :) We shared these with some friends, who were just as keen on these large profiteroles as we were. Definitely a keeper and a great addition to any Christmas buffét table. You could even dip them into lingonberry jam - that'd be even more Christmassy!

This recipe was also included in my latest cookbook, Jõulud kodus ("Christmas at Home"), published in Estonian in November 2011.


NOTE that this recipe would work just as well with Blutwurst, morcilla, sundae, boudin noir, blodpudding, beuling, bloedworst etc.

Black Pudding Profiteroles
(Keedutainapallid e. profitroolid verivorstiga)
Makes about 24 large profiteroles


December 2009

175 ml water
75 g butter
0.5 tsp salt
120 g plain flour/all-purpose flour (200 ml)
3 large eggs
100 g black pudding, finely chopped (and skinned first, if necessary)
1 Tbsp roasted onion flakes (I like using Meira's)

Remove the skin from the black pudding sausages (not necessary, when they're thin-skinned) and chop finely.
Put water, cubed butter and salt into a medium saucepan and bring to a rolling boil. Take immediately off the heat and stir in all the flour. Return to the heat and "boil" for about two minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon, until you have a smooth paste that leaves the sides of the saucepan.
Remove from the heat and cool for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the eggs one at a time, wholly incorporating the first egg before adding the next one (this is best done with electric beaters). The resulting paste should be glossy and slowly drop from a spoon.
Stir in the finely chopped black pudding and the dried roasted onion flakes.
With a help of two tablespoons or a cookie scoop, place small heaps of choux paste onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Bake in the middle of a pre-heated 180 C/375 F oven for about 30 minutes, until the choux puffs are nicely puffed up and golden brown.


August 2011

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Honey Monster Snowy Puffs

He's Back and boy is he Cool!! The Honey Monster is back and he has brought with him the Brrrrr-illiant new Snowy Puffs Cereal.

You might remember back in October we reviewed the Honey Monster Spooky Puffs, the review can be found here.

The new Snowy Puffs cereal contains the original delicious sugar puff pieces and delicious snow white meringue pieces. There are no artificial flavours, colours or preservatives and it is a source of fibre for the whole family.

When the Snowy Puffs arrived the boys were eager to dig in and try them out. They loved them and said the meringue pieces are "very yummy" so a big thumbs up. I had a bowl myself and I have to say I think they are delicious, I'll be putting a few more boxes in the trolley when we go shopping next.

Snowy Puffs is the fourth limited edition cereal produced by Honey Monster Foods this year, Snowy Puffs follows Honeycomb Puffs, Strawberry Puffs and Spooky Puffs.

Snowy Puffs are available now from all good retailers with an RRP of £1.50

We give Snowy Puffs a Brrr-illiant 4/5

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Gingerbread muffins

Gingerbread muffins, anno 2011

This recipe was originally posted in December 2008. It's been fully updated, and new photos are included.

Everyone likes a good muffin, and during Christmas time, this should be a Christmas muffin :)

There are endless variations on the theme. You could bake small cupcakes and garnish them with something Christmassy. Or you could simply add your favourite Christmas spices (say ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom) into your regular plain muffin recipe (and still glaze them afterwards). Or you could throw in a generous handful of red berries (lingonberries or cranberries) into your muffin batter to give them the festive feel.

Here's a recipe for very simple muffins - made special by the use of dark muscovado sugar and a mixture of gingerbread spices.

Note I've measured the dry ingredients both in grams and in volume. A standard American cup is 240 ml, so 100 ml of muscovado sugar would be a half a cup minus a heaped Tablespoon etc.

Gingerbread muffins
(Jõulumuffinid)
Makes 12 medium-sized muffins


Gingerbread muffins, anno 2008

2 large eggs
85 g dark muscovado sugar (100 ml)
50 g butter, melted and slightly cooled
100 g sour cream or creme fraiche
120 g plain/all-purpose flour (200 ml)
1.5 tsp baking powder
25 g ground hazelnuts or almonds (50 ml)
2 tsp gingerbread spice or mixed spice or pumpkin pie spice

icing sugar, for dusting

Whisk eggs with sugar. Add the melted butter and sour cream. Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, fold into the egg-sugar-butter-sour cream batter.
Spoon into muffin cups and bake in the middle of 200 C/400 F oven for 10-12 minutes, until muffins are cooked.
Let cool a little, then dust with icing sugar.


Gingerbread muffins, anno 2011

This recipe was also included in my latest cookbook, Jõulud kodus ("Christmas at Home"), published in Estonian in November 2011.

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Christmas Recipes: Beetroot and Orange Salad with Ginger Dressing

Photo by Andres Teiss

A lovely wintry salad, that can be served as a starter (ideal for a buffét table, being such an eye-catcher!) or as a side dish (I can see a simply roasted and then sliced duck breast alongside this salad). It's best to use roasted beets, but if you're pinched for time, use steamed or boiled beets that you can buy in a good shop.

The sweetness of the beets goes well with the slightly acidic notes of the orange segments, the ginger in the dressing makes it again very suitable for a Christmas table.

Beet and Orange Salad with Ginger-Yoghurt Dressing
(Peedi-apelsinisalat ingveri-jogurtikastmega)
Serves 4

500 g roasted, steamed or boiled beets
2 large oranges
a handful of walnuts, coarsely chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper
fresh mint leaves

Ginger-yoghurt dressing:
200 ml plain yoghurt
1 tsp ground ginger or finely grated fresh ginger
salt, to taste

Peel the beets, cut into thick slices or small segments. Peel the oranges, filet them (e.g. remove the membranes). Combine beets, oranges and walnuts on a serving tray, season with salt and pepper and fold in the mint leaves.
Combine the dressing ingredients, pour over the salad or serve on the side.

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Christmas Recipes 2011: Curried Parsnip Soup

Photo by Andres Teiss

I am not claiming that this curried parsnip soup is a traditional Christmas soup in Estonia or anywhere else in the world. However, after living in Scotland for seven years, I do associate parsnips - at least in their roasted incarnation - with Christmas feasts, and the warming curry spices make it immensely suitable for a lighter (and healthier) festive starter. I've used individual spices - ginger, cumin and turmeric - to spice up this pretty soup, but you can simply substitute your favourite curry powder mix for these spices.

Again, this recipe was one of the six recipes that I was recently asked to develop for a particular supermarket here in Estonia, which are included in their 2011 Christmas Newsletter. The photos for the newsletter were shot by Andres Teiss, and he has kindly allowed me to use those for my blog posts as well.

Curried Parsnip Soup
(Karrivürtsidega pastinaagisupp)
Serves six


Photo by Andres Teiss

1 to 2 Tbsp oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 garlic glove, minced
750 g parsnips (peeled weight)
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground ginger
1 litre hot vegetable stock
salt and pepper, to taste
fresh coriander/cilantro leaves, to garnish

Cut the parsnips into chunks.
Heat the oil in a heavy saucepan. Add the onion and sauté for a few minutes. Add the garlic, fry gently for another minute.
Add the spices and parsnip, stir to coat evenly with the spice mixture. Pour in the stock, season with salt and pepper. Bring into a boil, then reduce heat and simmer gently for 20-30 minutes, until the parsnip is soft.
Remove the saucepan from the heat. Process the soup until liquified (you can use either a hand-held immersion blender or a liquifier blender). Reheat the soup, season to taste, if necessary.
Garnish with a fresh coriander/cilantro leaves and serve.


Photo by Andres Teiss

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