Church bells are ringing, the choirs are singing, and we are well and truly into the festive period. As well as a season of love and understanding (I’ll stop with the Christmas songs), Christmas is a time to put aside our habitual diets in favour of multiple puddings and chocolate-infused goodness.
By this time of year, student bank balances are running low, and we are all holding our breath until the arrival of our January loans. However, we can’t let this stop us in our celebrations!
Despite its colourful and decorous nature, Christmas baking doesn’t have to break the bank balance. I have been scouring Pinterest and Facebook for cheap and easy baking ideas that make for tasty Christmas sweets. Using a combination of marshmallows, smarties, chocolate and biscuits, I have made and tweaked eight Christmas-themed recipes for under £10 (altogether) that would be perfect for festive parties or a little seasonal indulgence.
Shopping List:
– Marshmallows: 95p
– Chocolate chip cookies: £1.50
– Smarties: 63p
– Chocolate chips 90p
– Icing sugar: £1.30
– Milk chocolate: 79p
– Oreos: 59p
– Rolos: 65p
– Strawberry laces: 60p
– Kit-Kats: 63p
Melted shortbread snowmen
Ingredients:
For shortbread biscuit:
– 4oz flour
– 2oz caster sugar
– 6oz plain flour
For decoration:
– Icing
– Marshmallows
– Chocolate Chips
– Metled chocolate
Method:
For shortbread biscuit:
– Heat the oven to 190C.
– Beat the butter and sugar together.
– Stir in the flour.
– Roll out the dough until it in 1cm thick.
– Cut out biscuits using a round cutter.
– Bake for around 12-15 minutes, or until golden
For decoration:
– Decorate your shortbread biscuits with white icing, allowing the icing to run over the sides of the shortbread.
– Stick a marshmallow to the icing for the snowman’s head.
– Add two chocolate chips to the icing to make the snowman’s buttons (see photo).
– Use icing to attach a chocolate chip to the marshmallow head for the snowman’s nose.
– Using a cocktail stick, draw eyes and arms onto your snowman.
Cocktail-stick snowman Head
Ingredients:
– Marshmallows
– Cocktail sticks
– Oreos
– Rolos
– Chocolate chips (milk and white)
– Icing sugar (for sticking)
Method:
– Attach a marshmallow to the top of a cocktail stick.
– Separate the Oreo biscuit, so that you are left with two round Oreo circles.
– Stick the Rolo to the centre of an Oreo circle using icing.
– Similarly, stick the chocolate hat (the Oreo and Rolo combination) to the top of the marshmallow.
– Using icing, stick two milk chocolate chips to the marshmallow for the snowman’s eyes, and add one white chocolate chip for his nose.
Christmas pudding cookies
Ingredients:
– Chocolate-chip cookies
– Icing
– Smarties (red and green)
Method:
– Cover the top of the chocolate chip cookies with white icing (as shown in the picture).
– Decorate with two green smarties and one red smartie to create a holly leaf.
Shortbread Christmas tree
Ingredients:
– Shortbread (Christmas tree shaped)
– Icing
– Smarties
Method:
– Follow former recipe for shortbread, using a Christmas tree shaped cutter.
– When the shortbread had cooled down, cover the biscuit with icing.
– Stick the smarties to the icing as desired.
Shortbread reindeer
Ingredients:
– Round shortbreads
– Icing (for sticking)
– Smarties
– Milk chocolate
Method:
– Follow the previous recipe for shortbread, using a round cutter to create circle biscuits (the rim of a glass will also do the job)
– Use white icing to stick the Smartie nose on your reindeer.
– Use the white icing (or alternatively chocolate chips) to create two eyes.
– Chop milk chocolate into small strips for the reindeer’s antlers; attach using icing sugar.
Shortbread baubles
Ingredients:
– Shortbread rounds (see above recipe)
– White icing
– Smarties
Methods:
– Ice half of each shortbread biscuit.
– Decorate with smarties
Kit-Kat Christmas trees
Ingredients:
– Kit-Kats
– Icing
– Smarties
Methods:
– Cut two kit-Kats into triangles to create the body of a christmas tree.
– Use the remaining Kit-Kat to cut out a stem for your tree.
– Attach the stem to the body using icing sugar.
– Drizzle remaining icing sugar onto the Christmas trees, and decorate with smarties (for baubles).
Marshmallow snowmen
Ingredients:
– Cocktail sticks
– Marshmallows
– Strawberry laces
– Smarties
– Chocolate Chips
– Rolo hat (optional)
Method:
– Attach two or three marshmallows to a cocktail stick.
– Using icing, stick smarties to the lower marshmallows for the snowman’s buttons.
– Stick chocolate chips on the snowman for its nose.
– Attach a Rolo hat to your snowman (optional).
– Tie a strawberry lace around your snowman’s neck to create a scarf.
Photos: My own
Shortbread recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/shortbread_1290
Kit Kat idea: https://www.facebook.com/cupcakeaddiction/videos/10153690400378555/