The mince pies have been baked and are now stored in the freezer awaiting the start of the festive feasting. Of course, we tried some, for the purposes of quality assurance.
We actually prefer a sweetened pastry and this one gives very shortbread-like results.
The little chestnut rolls have also been made and frozen (uncooked).
Using a recipe from Rose Elliot's vegetarian Christmas book, the rolls were made with buttery rough puff pastry (turned and rolled eight times!) with a filling of chestnut puree, breadcrumbs, soy sauce, grated onion and garlic and a good pinch of chilli powder, all mixed together. I did bake some but they were polished off before I managed to get a picture.
The cake is yet to be iced and I usually make rum truffles and peppermint bark (the candy canes arrived today) to nibble when people fancy a change from Quality Street. We also need to fit in the big supermarket shop and hopefully there'll be a trip here for cheeses and one or two other treats. Not to mention ALL of the gift wrapping.
Tempus is certainly fugiting.