#schwartzmas

So I figured the perfect time to teach y'all how to make a super simple Christmas treat would be late Christmas Eve when all of the shops are closed. But maybe you have these ingredients lying around in which case, good on you!

So I don't need to tell y'all what film this is for. Unless you have no idea what this shit is in which case, it's Die Hard. It's always Die Hard.

This year my housemates and I celebrated our house Christmas on Monday night and we had dinner and watched Die Hard together and I made snacks  whose main ingredients are chocolate and candy canes. Because why the fuck not, right?

I wrote this article for Half Decent about my love of Die Hard and as y'all know I tried and failed completely to make a gingerbread version of Nakatomi Tower from the film. I'm going to try again tonight, so wish me all of the lucks.

Suffice it to say that I won't go into too much detail other than to say WATCH IT. WATCH IT NOW.

So what did I make for our event? I'll tell you, geez, give me a chance.

I've made these before for The World's End, but after finding this recipe on Pinterest I decided to modify the way I make them. So yeah, these are basically the 'better than sex' balls dipped in chocolate and topped with candy canes. Here's how I made them!

Here's the shit you'll need:

250g of Oreos or Delta Cream biscuits

250g of Cream Cheese

2 x 200g blocks of milk chocolate

Candy canes for the crushing and whatnot

They'll make about 30, depending on how big or small your balls are. He. He. He.

Ok, so don't crush the candy canes first. They'll be sticky when you actually need to use them for decorating. So what did I do first, you ask? I crushed the candy canes. I may have also said, 'should have double-bagged these,' which, incidentally is the name of my sex tape. Also this measuring cup was not that effective.

Then you crush the crap out of these suckers in a food processor or whatever.

Then you mix it with this crap. It wasn't quite soft enough yet so I whipped it before I added the biscuit crumbs. Then figured out it still wasn't quite soft enough. But it went ok.

See?

Roll 'em in balls. Hehe. Balls. Then pop them in the freezer for a while so they're firm enough to dip in dat chocolate doe.

There were hiccups but they look ok, right?

Because I was popping them into little patty cases I had to cut the excess chocolate off them before I popped them in said cases and cut most of the chocolate from the bottom off them. But I did have a lot of extra chocolate to eat. Because at this time of year chocolate is scarce. Because I've eaten it all.

Is that one of my hairs on them there on the right? Shit.

Ok, so you won't need all of that melted chocolate or candy canes. So what you can make with the leftover chocolate is Christmas Bark: melted chocolate smoothed out on a tray, and sprinkled with crushed candy cane.

See? Once it sets break it up and put it in a container. Or stuff it in your piehole. Could be the name of your sex tape?

Here's a close-up of one where you can see how sweaty the balls get! He. He. He. BALLS. I'm an adult.

Sweaty balls. They need to stay refrigerated because they're melted chocolate and cream cheese and those things don't stay solid for long, just like love. But they're beautiful while they last. I've been listening to a lot of Taylor Swift. AND I DO NOT APOLOGISE.

I made another batch and discovered the following trick: chuck the balls on a skewer and dip in the chocolate. Then instead of waiting for them to set before putting them in the patty cases just drop those bastards in there. Then when they're a little firmer you gently take the skewers out and patch up the hole with a little chocolate and stick more candy cane pieces on top. The melted chocolate sort of fills up the cases and makes them harder to peel off when eating but... fuck. They're delicious. Just eat the paper as well.

I made them as a little extra gift for my fams - I just bought some cheap mason jars and some ridiculously expensive red and white twine and tied it around the jars and attached a candy cane. I've also written the basic recipe on a gift card so they can make more of them when they've scoffed the ones I made! It helps us both because they get to eat more of them and I don't have to make any more for them. Win!

But srsly. Whatever holiday you're celebrating, have a good one, won't you?

I’m sorry I used the worst film in the franchise for my title.

Source: Atomic Anxiety

I celebrate Christmas and Schwartzmas - the annual day of thanks to Jason Schwartzman for being a perfect human being (also known as the day my friends and I celebrate the holidays by the giving of gifts, consumption of food and drinking of cocktails), but no matter what holiday you celebrate in December (or any time of the year, really), no doubt the food you intend to make is the most important part of the planning process.

Part of our Christmas tradition at home is watching our favourite Christmas movies on Christmas Day. In order of brilliance and perfect realisation of the Christmas Spirit, they are the following:

Die Hard

Gremlins

Bad Santa

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

Love, Actually

Home Alone

A Mom For Christmas

Scrooged

Elf

The greatest Christmas film of all time is Die Hard, obvi. And this year I want to celebrate that film with a traditional Christmas treat. And whether you’re a fan of Christmas or not, you MUST be a fan of Die Hard. Otherwise I don’t understand you.

I won’t thrill you with all of the details of the film now (patience, possums), for I will keep that for my proper post. But I was watching an episode of The Great British Bake Off and it was the biscuit week. The big challenge that week was to make a gingerbread structure. During the show they highlighted some famous British biscuits and I was delighted to see they agreed with me that the greatest gingerbread ever created is in Grasmere in the Lakes District.

I went there in 2009, partly because it was the long-time home of William Wordsworth (you know, the guy who wandered lonely as a cloud?), but mostly because it’s mentioned in the Smiths song ‘Panic’ (‘hopes may rise on the Grasmere/but Honey Pie you’re not safe here’). I also love any small towns that sell chocolate/pastries/gingerbread/any sort of addition to butter such as cashews, lemon, lime, or rum.

The gingerbread is called Sarah Nelson’s Gingerbread and is sold in the Grasmere Gingerbread Shop. It is literally the greatest gingerbread in the world. Chris Traeger sentence structure necessary here, guys. I recently discovered they ship to Australia and although the shipping alone is £38 and our Customs are so strict I’d be surprised if it made it into the country, I almost bought some. But then I found a recipe on the BBCOne page, available here. It is delicious. So I decided to give it a try, with one modification that I used maple syrup instead of golden syrup. No real reason. Ok, I couldn’t find the golden syrup at my local Woolies.

So I dumped some of the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Mixed in some melted butter.

Added the rest of the dry shit and one more bit of wet crap.

Spread it out on a tray lined with baking paper.

Then put in the oven for 40 minutes.

Et Voila!

It was delicious, but I think I left it in the oven too long, and it feels more like a big ass ginger snap than a gingerbread. It also has some common ingredients to ANZAC Biscuits, the delicious Australian (and I assume New Zealand) treat usually reserved for April 25 (ANZAC Day) but delicious any day of the year.

I decided to make the gingerbread again, but this time crushing the oats in the food processor to see if that would make the recipe seem more dough-like or make it a good recipe for making gingerbread structures.

Here’s how that all went.

It’s still giving off ginger snaps vibes, so I highly recommend making it for watching the film Ginger Snaps, which you no doubt watched on Halloween, as per my instructions.

And now is where I draw my two seemingly disparate points together. For Christmas this year I’d like to combine my love of Die Hard and my addiction to gingerbread in one glorious Christmas Treat.

Yep, you guessed it (or saw an earlier photo on my blog): For Christmas this year I plan to make a Gingerbread Nakatomi Tower.

This is what the tower looks like:

Source: Wikipedia

The fictional Nakatomi Tower is actually Fox Plaza in LA. I sadly did not get to visit this place while there. All the more reason to return.

Obviously, my interpretation will not be this complex. Even though this building doesn’t seem this complex. I’m just not very good at maths, physics, baking, or life in general.

The next challenge is to find a good gingerbread recipe that makes good pieces I can use to construct a gingerbread tower.

Will keep you posted!

Today I made a shocking discovery. Sallie does not in fact own a copy of Rushmore on DVD.