A couple of weeks ago I had a great idea: since F was going to his annual Christmas party with his colleagues this Friday, why not invite some of my girls to a Christmas workshop, drink some mulled wine and make some Christmas goodies together? What I didn’t think about at the time was that I’d probably work until 4:45 pm, come home to walk Sammy, give the house a quick shine, arrange some finger food to nibble on, make the mulled wine and then collapse.

As you might have guessed by now, by the time my friends came, also tired from a week’s work, kids, Christmas gatherings and such, we didn’t have energy to even stand, let alone make anything edible. So we had some mulled wine, shared some cheese with Sam, laughed to our hearts’ content and wrapped it up around. 11 pm. Gordana spent the night, but before going to bed and we ended up in the woods with Sammy, my mobile phone as a flash light, slipping forward like penguins, jiggling and laughing, falling and pulling ourselves up, Sammy jumping on top of us to “save us” from the fall. haha! You should have seen us! As she put it, it was like in a joke- a Serb, a Romanian and a Russian (Sam) were walking in the woods in winter, slightly inebriated and in a good mood… haha! Since we had lots of ingredients and were in need of some homey activities the day after, we decided we should try and make a couple of sweets- nougat and sugarcoated almonds. So after Gordana took Sammy for a walk in exactly the same place as the day before and came home with ripped jeans, declaring Sammy had saved her from her fall, we started on each our thing. About the nougat I have to say- if you ever feel like throwing away a whole day, try and make it. Or else, settle for a manageable recipe and keep buying your nougat in France. 😉

Ingredients:

100 g almonds
80 g pistachios
200 g sugar
175 g mild honey
1 ts vanilla sugar
1/2 dl water
1 egg white
a pinch of Maldon salt
100 g cranberries
15 g freeze dried raspberries
powder sugar on top

Set the oven at 150 degrees C and clothe a form with grease proof paper. Put the almonds and pistachios on it and let them roast about 10 minutes. Take the form out and put it aside.

Put honey, sugar, vanilla sugar and water in a casserole and let it boil for 5 minutes. In the meantime, whip the egg white and the salt until the mass gets white, airy and stiff.

When the syrup is ready, pour it in a stream over into the kitchen aid with the egg white when the whisk is still going. Whip for 5 more minutes. Be careful when you pour the syrup, since it’s very hot and it can drip.

Take out the whisk and stir in the almonds, pistachios, cranberries and most of the freeze dried raspberries. Crush some of the raspberries before you add them.

Spread the mass over the form. Sprinkle the rest of the raspberries over and then a layer of powder sugar and put a baking paper sheet on top. Set the form in the fridge for about an hour before you divide it into smaller pieces and wrap in baking sheet.

 

Recipe courtesy of Fru Timian.

PS. I’m never making it! 😉  haha!

xxx, Alina