DIY Christmas | chocolate orange truffles.

I'm starting a new series of blog posts called 'DIY Christmas'. I'm a bit late time be talking about Christmas gifts & decorations but this is my first year doing this kind of thing so I'm just documenting the things that I've enjoyed making, ready for people to get ideas for next year! (Can't believe I just spoke about NEXT Christmas when it's only 18th December!)

This first post is about chocolate orange truffles and how to make them. I stumbled across this recipe online and as a sucker for anything chocolate-orange, I had to try making them. The end product was great and I though what a great Christmas gift these would make! We all know what it's like;  the major festive stress of who to buy gifts for. My family is huge and I physically could not afford to buy for everyone. However, I can afford to make them truffles! I'm making these for aunties, cousins, uncles, friends and anyone else who enjoys a sweet treat!

My plan is to make each person a little gift bag decorated with a luggage label with their name on, some ribbon and inside, four delicious truffles of two diffrrent flavours flavours.

To make about 30 chocolate orange truffles, you will need:

200g milk chocolate
1 large orange
100ml double cream

and that is it!

method:
melt the chocolate & cream together either in a bowl above (but not touching) simmering water or in short bursts in the microwave.

whilst this is melting, zest and juice an orange and pop contents into a small saucepan. bring to the boil, simmer until the sauce reduces to about a tablespoons worth.

Add the two liquids together and simply put into a container, making sure the mixture is at least 3cm deep. Pop into the fridge and leave to cool for 2-3 hours.

Once the truffle mixture has hardened slightly, use a melon baller or teaspoon to roll a small ball, shape in your hands and roll into a bowl of icing sugar. DONE!

You can decorate these however you like. I use eBay for all my crafty things ans have bought little cases for them which worked out super cheap. And the cellophane bags are from eBay too. Perfect for Christmas.

Cornish Beauty.

a Cornish Christmas.

Well, well, well. Against all belief, it is infact time to 'deck the halls with bells of holly'. I honestly can't believe it (sure I say this every year!) Is this time again! Sunday 9th December 2012, and the day we shall turn our home into Santa's grotto. We are pretty low-key Christmas people, especially when it comes to the decorations. But what we do have, I just love. We bought everything together when we moved into our first house and nor really changed much! First things first: I HATE coloured lights. Yellow/white all the way. Colours are just too tacky! Our tree is a 6ft (fake) slim line tree which is perfect for us, beautifully understated. With only gold/silver/cream/wood items hung from it. Most of the items are hand-made in Cornwall. We have some baulbals and instead of tinsel we prefer beads. Finally, we have beautiful gifts of tree decorations which makes it even more specular.

Other festive touches include 2x stockings,  hung on the fireplace of course.
Garland along our wooden beams & on the fireplace -a new addition this year courtesy of my mother-in-law :)

And another favourite is my home-made festive oranges! Large oranges stabbed with lots of whole clothes hung with a beautiful Christmas ribbon!

Our house looks so festive now, and this is our first Christmas in our cottage, which incidentally is made for this time of year! Starting to get excited for father Christmas coming now!

Cornish Beauty.

I hate wrapping paper!

Why?....
It's expensive.
It's thin.
It always rips.
It's shit.

Recently I have stopped buying wrapping paper for presents, for all occasions/people. I just hate it, it's always bad quality unless you spend a lot of money and then you have to have a matching gift tag. It's just a rip-off in my opinion. So what I've been doing is simply using brown parcel wrap. Genius! It's thick, good quality, cheap as chips and you can customize it with other things such as ribbons, stamps and stickers!
For birthdays I tend to leave it plain with a luggage tag and ribbon-nice and simple. And I've just started my Christmas present wrapping and I'm having a ball making the parcels look all pretty!

This I what I'm using to wrap Christmas presents at the moment: (see photo)
Parcel wrap (25 meters for £3.45+99p delivery)
Luggage tags with string (50 for £1.15 + £1.43 delivery)
Various ribbons (from Next & eBay)

It's just great-cheap, pretty and you can put your own twist on it! I way prefer using ribbon anyway. Happy days!

Cornish Beauty.