Our Food Director Sarah is a food obsessive, and spends most of her time scoping out the latest food trends, experimenting in her own kitchen, or making her family wait to eat while she photographs every dinner she makes for the 'gram! A complete Middle Eastern food junkie, she is never far from a good shawarma marinade, a pinch of Aleppo chilli or a sprig of dill
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Sarah Akhurst
Our Food Director Sarah is a food obsessive, and spends most of her time scoping out the latest food trends, experimenting in her own kitchen, or making her family wait to eat while she photographs every dinner she makes for the 'gram! A complete Middle Eastern food junkie, she is never far from a good shawarma marinade, a pinch of Aleppo chilli or a sprig of dill
See more of Sarah Akhurst ’s recipes
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Ingredients
125ml whole milk
2 tbsp caster sugar, plus 100g for rolling
1 x 7g sachet fast action dried yeast
300g strong white bread flour
½ tsp fine sea salt
1 large egg
60g soft salted butter, plus 50g extra for brushing
8 waffle ice cream cones (we used Carousel brand)
foil, to wrap the cones
1 tsp ground cinnamon
100g chocolate hazelnut spread
To decorate
caramel sauce, about 4 tbsp, warmed
chopped roasted hazelnuts, about 20g
icing sugar to dust
star-topped co*cktail sticks
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Step by step
Warm the milk until just lukewarm, add the sugar and yeast. Set aside for 5 minutes. Put the flour and salt in a free standing mixer or large bowl.
Make a well in the centre of the flour and add the warm milk mixture, the egg and the 60g of butter. Stir to bring together, then continue to knead for 5 minutes with the dough hook on a low speed, or for 10 minutes by hand on a floured surface. Transfer to a greased bowl, and cover. Leave to rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
Meanwhile, prepare the cones to shape the dough. Use scissors to trim the edge of each waffle cone evenly so that they will stand up straight. Roll each cone in foil until it is covered, making sure the top has a distinct point, and tucking the foil underneath to hold it in place. Stand on a baking tray.
Preheat the oven to 190°C, fan 170°C, gas 5. Tip the dough out onto a floured worksurface and knock it back. Roll out into a large rectangle, roughly 25cm x 40cm. Cut into 8 long strips.
Melt the extra 50g of butter; mix the cinnamon with the extra 100g of sugar in a wide shallow bowl. Brush the foiled cones with some melted butter to help you remove them easily later.
Taking one strip of dough, start to wind it around a buttered cone from the base, tucking the end under the cone so it doesn’t come loose. The strip should butt up against itself as you wind, but not overlap. When the cone is completely covered, roll it firmly with your hand on your work surface to press the strips together. Snip off any excess from the top, twisting the dough to a point at the top of the cone.
Brush with more melted butter, then roll in the cinnamon sugar to coat. Stand on the baking tray and repeat with the remaining cones. Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until golden brown; cool.
When cool enough to handle, gently remove the foil cone from inside, carefully cutting away any excess bread to trim the base evenly so the trees will stand up straight. Warm the chocolate hazelnut spread briefly in the microwave then brush it all over the inside of the cones. Handle them gently as they easily separate in a twist.
Decorate with a drizzle of caramel sauce, a scattering of nuts and a snowy dusting of icing sugar. Stick a star-topped co*cktail stick in the top of each.
Spoon melted chocolate into a small resealable plastic bag and cut off a small corner.Pipe Christmas tree shape onto the parchment paper and allow to harden in a cool place overnight. Once the chocolate has hardened, carefully remove chocolate trees from paper and use to decorate Christmas cakes or desserts.
Roll out 200g of the marzipan to about 6mm thickness. Cut out 1 large and 2 small Christmas trees. Push 2 co*cktail sticks up through the base of each tree, allowing 3cm of the sticks to protrude so you can push them into the baked cake.
Using the piping bag, dot the melted chocolate onto the very top of the ball and add your first sweet. Press gently for a while until the sweet sticks without sliding off. Repeat this in circular layers with all your sweets until the entire tree is covered. Then, leave the tree to set.
Spray the tops of the branches with flocking spray ($12, Amazon), using a steady back-and-forth motion.Continue layering the spray until you're happy with the coverage. (The closer and more thickly you spray, the heavier the snow will appear.)
Start at the bottom of the tree and work your way up, fluffing each branch with a brush. Then go back in with your hands and continue fluffing the tree from the inside outward until you achieve a natural, realistic result.
Fill a bowl with ice water. Fill a piping bag with 1 1/4 cups melted milk chocolate and use it to draw a tree on the surface of the ice water. When the tree has hardened, turn it 90° in the water, then draw more branches and thicken the trunk on the side. Repeat several times to obtain a 3D tree.
Pour the mixed casting plaster into the bucket. It should fill the bucket to about 1/3 full. Hold the dowel in place until the plaster sets (once fully dried, you can then cover the plaster with something pretty like gravel etc or wrapped sweets and wind ribbons around the dowel to decorate).
Introduction: My name is Fr. Dewey Fisher, I am a powerful, open, faithful, combative, spotless, faithful, fair person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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Prep time: 1 hr
