A Lot of Baking & Giveaway Day 11

I've started my Christmas baking! Oh I love this time of year. If there's one thing Santa could bring me that I'd really love, it would be a bigger kitchen. The one in the old house was huge but the one in this one is extremely small. See for yourself:

Not exactly spacious, is it? Baking multiple things in there can be a bit tricky but I give it my best shot. On the menu was:

Treacle toffee. This is one of my fave things to make. Doesn't photograph particuarly well but it tastes delicious! It's an old recipe of my Mum's and it's just so forgiving to make. You're meant to heat the mixture to a precise temperature and it is perfect when you do that but if you do go a bit wrong then it still works and tastes scrummy, it's just a bit chewier or harder than it technically should be! This was a good batch though.

Florentines. These are quite time consuming to make because of having to wait for them to cool and then doing the chocolate coating but they're really easy to make and they look quite swanky when they're done. I can't eat them because of all the cream and chocolate but I'm assured they're very good, especially with coffee.

Shortbread. Either the dough wasn't chilled enough or the oven was too hot because they haven't kept their shape very well but the taste tester gave them the thumbs up so that's the main thing.

And some vanilla fudge which I hastily whizzed together this morning when I realised I hadn't made enough stuff last night.

I pop them into bags (mine are from Lakeland) and tie and curl some ribbon round them. Beautiful, even if I do say so myself!

I have other stuff I bake at this time of year but that was all I had time for today. Not sure if anyone would like recipes - just let me know if you do and I'll whack them in another post.

On the eleventh day of my giveaway, I will give to thee:

The books don't seem to have been too popular! Oh well, here's hoping you like this prize a bit more.

Pipers are Scottish. Scottish = tartan. I'm not working on any great leaps of imagination here, am I? So I've made a lovely oversized tartan hairbow (aren't I getting crafty?) and picked up something from the Totally Tartan collection at MAC. I had my eye on one of the other products first of all but irritatingly, the packaging on most of the stuff in the collection wasn't tartan and that would have kind of spoiled the point of putting it in today's giveaway. This eyeshadow (Golden Crown) is tartan patterned and v. pretty too, plus I'm assured it will suit all skin types!