A (rather belated) Mother's Day Present

This year for one reason and another (mainly due to Baby Bear having the flu, since he started school last September he seems to have picked up every germ going) I ended up being rather rubbish and not getting my mum a Mother's Day present back in March.  As we live 200 miles away from my family most presents I get for them come courtesy of Amazon and while they're convenient they're not exactly personal.  Which is why I decided to make up for the present being late by making a box full of sweet treats.

After umming and ahhing for a few weeks I came up with what I think is a good selection of treats - coconut ice, home made fudge, lemon and poppy seed shortbread and millionaire's shortbread chocolate bark.  I thought about doing peppermint creams but the last time I tried them they did not travel well and I knew that the goodie box would have to stand up to a 4 hour car journey when we visit Cheshire this week.

Coconut ice is a really good recipe to do with children as it's quick, easy and involves no cooking (it also involves getting your hands dirty which kids generally love!)

Coconut ice

1 can of condensed milk
300g dessicated coconut
300g icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla paste
red food colouring

1) In a large bowl mix together the coconut and the icing sugar.  Add the condensed milk and vanilla and mash together with a spoon.  It should form a sticky, messy ball when ready.

2) Divide the mixture between two bowls.  Add a couple of drops of the food colouring to one lot of the ice and mix well.  Press into a 20 inch cake tin lined with cling film.  Spoon the white mixture over the top and chill for at least 4 hours.

One of my fondest memories of visiting my grandparents was watching my Nanna making toffee sauce for popcorn.  She might have failed miserably at trying to teach me how to knit but she taught me how to check for the soft ball stage of toffee making!  This skill comes in surprisingly useful when making other things such as honeycomb, jam and of course fudge.

I was pleasantly surprised by how easy this recipe for fudge was (having never actually tried to make it before) and it is genuinely far better than anything you'll buy in a shop.

Vanilla fudge

1 can of condensed milk
150ml milk
450g sugar
115g butter
1/2 tsp vanilla paste

1) Put all the ingredients in a large nonstick pan and heat gently on the hob.  Once the sugar has dissolved turn up the heat the bring to the boil.

2) Allow to simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn't stick.  When it starts to thicken it's time to do the soft ball test.  Using a glass with about an inch or so of cold water in it drop a small amount of the mixture into the water.  If the fudge is ready it will form a ball in the glass.  If the fudge hasn't reached this stage yet let it boil some more, re-testing it after a couple of minutes.  If you have a sugar thermometer then the temperature should be about 118C

3) Once the mix has reached the soft ball stage take off the heat and beat vigorously for at least 5 minutes - it's this beating that will give the fudge its characteristically grainy temperature.  Once thick and creamy pour the fudge into a grease proof paper lined 20cm tin.  Allow to cool completely and set before cutting.

Shortbread is a beautifully simple biscuit to make, using only 3 ingredients.  Because of it's simplicity it needs to be made with the best ingredients you can afford as the quality of them really does make a difference to the finished product.

Shortbread

125g butter
55g sugar
180g flour
Zest of one lemon
1 tbsp of poppy seeds

1) Beat together the sugar and butter until creamed.  Add the flour, zest and poppy seeds and mix to form a firm dough, I found the easiest way to do this was by using my hands. Transfer on to a floured surface and roll out to about 1cm thick.

2) Cut into whatever shapes you want and then chill for 20 minutes.

3) Put in a pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes at 190C/375F/Gas Mark 5, until golden brown.

I've seen chocolate bark on a couple of American websites, usually by melting chocolate and then studding it with broken up candy canes.  I took inspiration from millionaires shortbread and dotted 100g of melted chocolate with with tiny chunks of fudge and bits of broken up shortbread.

I'm sad to say that the bark wasn't a complete success - the chocolate I used was too dark for my mums taste and because I didn't have time to temper it properly it didn't have that distinctive chocolate 'snap' when broken.  Happily the rest of goodies seemed to go down quite well and more than made up for their lateness!