BELLINTER HOUSE | IRELAND

2016 marks the year of 21st birthdays, back in April was my best friends birthday and to celebrate another friend and I planned a little get-away for her. We decided on Bellinter House, which is a beautiful country, spa house in Ireland. Originally we’d planned to fly out midweek and return at the weekend but due to me being an idiot and not checking my passport was still in date, it was all postponed by 1 day. (And cost me a small fortune to rectify!)

After a hectic beginning to the break (& a quick dash into LDN for a new passport) we stayed at a hotel near Gatwick airport the night before our flight where we were able to start the celebrations. I ended up with a pretty rotten hangover for the flight out!

Once we got to Dublin, we spent the day in the town centre wandering round and ‘pub-hopping’. We also visited the Guinness Storehouse which was really good fun. There’s was a lot we didn’t get to see/do with only being in Dublin centre for the day. We were limited to how much time we could spend at the Storehouse due to needing to be back at the airport to collect our luggage! But, we did ensure we made it to the tasting session and collecting our free Guinness from the Gravity bar! Although, as it happens none of us were big fans of the drink, so opted for 1 Guinness between the 3 of us!

DEERPARK, CORNWALL

Back in October me and 4 friends headed for the forest for a week long retreat in the good ol’ fresh Cornish air. We stayed in one of the Forest Holidays resorts, it was a bit of a last minute plan and a quite a journey, but it was great fun!

When we arrived, we headed straight for the nearest alcohol-selling shop! After stocking up and grabbing a bottle of bubbly to celebrate our arrival we all jumped straight in the hot-tub, on our cabin’s balcony!!

It was divine, being out in the fresh air but completely submerged in the perfect, hot water! Bliss!

The cabins are super cosy and surprisingly warm – we were really lucky with the weather when we went, it was pretty mild, no rain and pretty sunny most days.

Between us we cooked dinner every night, including one exceptional roast! One night we even ordered curry/pizza to our cabin, they prepare the food in the reception and then deliver it to your cabin!!

As a group we chose not to pay for the TV package and with the very limited Wifi too we were almost completely screen-free for a whole week! It was really nice, we brought a couple of board games and accompanied with drinks and food it was a perfect evening activity.

RECIPE | MINCE PIES WITH SPICED ORANGE CRUMBLE

The recipe for these mince pies caught my eye when I was flicking through the Waitrose magazine one lunchtime, as a family we eat a lot of mince pies over the christmas period so it was one I knew would go down well! Mum and I batch bake about 200 mince pies every year, we tend to give them out as gifts and take them to events here and there throughout December, and we’d been thinking about trying something new this year so it was the perfect excuse to try these out.

They went down a treat!

Everyone really enjoyed them, warm and cold they tasted amazing. The crumble on the top added a really nice crunch to them too, I think the topping would work just as well on other fruits too alternative to the mincemeat. We followed the recipe for the pastry as well as the crumble although for ease we said we’d probably just make our usual, basic pastry recipe if we made them in bulk.

Ingredients: 225g plain flour 50g ground almonds 50g caster sugar 125g unsalted butter 1 vanilla pod (we used vanilla essence) 1 egg yolk 800g mincemeat

For the crumble: 75g plain flour 6tbsp demerara sugar 60g unsalted butter 1 orange, zest 1tsp mixed spice

Method:

• Make the pastry; Mix flour, almonds, caster sugar, butter and vanilla essence to form crumbs.
• Add the egg yolk and 1tbsp cold water, pulse together into a dough.
• Knead until smooth. (The recipe them says to chill the pastry for 30 mins, we didn’t!)
• Make the crumble topping; Mix the flour, demerara sugar, butter, orange zest and mixed spice to a chunky crumble mixture.
• Preheat the over to 200°c.
• Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured work top to about £1 thick & cut out 24 rings using a 8-9cm cutter. Press the rounds into the holes and lightly pinch the edges for a fluted effect.
• Divide the mincemeat between the cases (about 1 heaped tbsp in each) and scatter the crumble over the top.
• Bake for 15 minutes or until golden and crunchy.
• Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before turning out and transferring to a wire rack.
• Once cool, dust with icing sugar.

The mince pies can be frozen for up to 3 months and re-heated when desired.

We don’t have a 8-9cm round cutter so used a jagged edge cookie cutter which meant we didn’t have to flute the edges. We did find that the pastry didn’t roll as easily as others but that may be because we didn’t chill it as instructed!

I’d definitely recommend this recipe to anyone to try, I’ll be making them again during the christmas period for sure.