• Pinch Of Salt
• 6oz Butter (if butter is scarce, good baking margarine will do nicely)
• 3oz Caster Sugar
• 1 Egg Yolk (Save the egg white for glazing or tomorrow’s breakfast)
• Mum’s Mincemeat (which is top secret, but you can find it in the cupboard)
• Zest of Clementines
• 2 tbsp Cointreau
1. Preheat the oven to 190°C. Grease mince pie tin.
2. Combine ingredients except the zest, Cointreau, and mince meat until it resembles breadcrumbs. No machinery required! Just sing to the tune of “I’ll be Home for Christmas” to mix.
3. Chill the pastry for 10 minutes.
4. Tip mincmeat into a bowl. Stir in zest of clementine and Cointreau.
5. Roll out the dough, cut, and line the tins.
6. Fill with mincemeat. Cut star shapes from the remaining pastry and place on top of each pie.
7. Bake for around 20 minutes until golden and bubbling.
She swallowed, eyes catching on step number two. She was unsure if she should risk singing at this hour. What if she woke Lachlan? More importantly, what if he woke up to find hersingingto the batter?
Then he’d really think she’d lost her marbles.
Whatever. She would pretend she was alone, put the consequences in a stocking, and shove it up the chimney.
She murmured the song, her eyes on the grandfather clock. Lachlan shifted, and Puffcake lifted his head, unamused. He huffed powdered sugar, stretched, and curled up again.
It was the longest minute of her life, but she finished the notes, the batter shifting from a pale yellow to a spectacular shade of cream. It seemed to sparkle with enthusiasm.
As it baked, her stomach growled. Smelling the crisp scent of the fruit mixed with the sweetness of the batter, she grew impatient to try it.
In the meantime, she decided to check her mobile to see if she could find any information online about the baking competition. Clicking onto the SugarPlum Suites app and tapping on the “events” tab, a bright pink flyer popped across her screen.
She saw the Reindeer Game’s information with fun add-ons like a biscuit swap table, caroling, DIY snow globes, ice carving exhibits, and more. A little lower, she scrolled to see it.
Baking Spirits Bright Guidelines:
•All entries must be homemade and prepped from scratch.
•Entries should be dropped off no later than 5:00 pm on December 23rd. The tasting festivities will begin at 5:30 pm sharp, and the winner will be announced shortly after.
•Recipes will be requested for transparency and for sharing in the local newspaper.
The guidelines didn’t say anything about magically inspired recipes, but she wasn’t sure if this was something she’d like to share with the world. Using Isadora’s recipes felt deeply personal. If this cottage had wanted to share them with just anyone, it would’ve by now.
Deciding against using one of Isadora’s, Eliza scrolled through Pinterest instead. She looked for Christmas dishes thatseemed equally as appealing as the ones inside the cookbook, but there wasn’t anything that stood out to her. After several minutes, she locked her phone, tightened her apron, and brainstormed the old-fashioned way.
She liked to call it her Baking Ad-Lib:
Two ingredients for flavor. One ingredient for texture and one for visual appeal.
