The tree went up on the first Saturday of December. Glittering with ornaments, tinsel and fairy lights. Spirits were lifted and brightened a little.  What else? Desserts. Always works for me. A sure mood enhancer and belly pleaser. I decided I’d bake some traditional desserts, not attempted before. To surprise my husband. To fondly remember Christmas 2020. To not allow Covid-19 to override a happy time and celebration. Not easy as it’s all pervasive. Still, I gave it a go. 

Trawled through recipes on Google. Watched YouTube. There were too many desserts to choose from. From the complicated with too many ingredients to the more realistic and possibly, doable ones.  Chose the latter. Stopped at 4 sweet surprises. Why? Because my husband has less of a sweet tooth than I do. A Christmas fruit cake, custard trifle, a tropical Christmas tree cookie and chocolate roll. Not quite the advent calendar 12 or 24 daily chocolate or special gifts but surprises nonetheless.

First was the Christmas fruit cake. A few tweaks, and I had a fruitcake that was light and fluffy with crispy edges. Truth be told, I used ‘Maida’ flour that was left over from Deepavali. There just wasn’t any all-purpose flour in any of the supermarkets in the KLCC area. Too many home bakers. Coconut oil replaced butter. Yogurt substituted eggs. Without a hob, I soaked the dried fruits in the microwaved lemon and orange juice (not alcohol). My husband described the Christmas fruit cake as a fruit cake for Christmas. It wasn’t quite your traditional rich Christmas cake. That said, he liked it enough to eat it all. I replicated the recipe for my mum. Despite being a non-dessert person, she ate the whole 4″ cake. As an aside, I don’t own an 8″ cake pan. I never do full recipes. A serial downsizer, ingredients are reworked for 2 or 4 persons. Small batches. Enough for my husband and me. Admittedly, the best part of baking is eating the ingredients and yummy dough in the process. Shame. Shame.

Second was the custard trifle. I microwaved the instant custard powder, sugar and milk. It turned out rather nicely. No lumps. The trifle layers comprised custard, toasted oats, almond and walnut crumble, toasted dried blueberries (they bloated and crisped up – yum) and chunks of dark chocolate. Repeated the layers, and decorated with peanut M&M’s. That bit didn’t quite work as the M&M’s bled into the custard. It didn’t matter as my target audience of one was a happy recipient. Hard pressed to call it a trifle, my husband described it as a tasty custard surprise.

I also decided to bake Christmas cookies. Belatedly, I realised that I didn’t have any Christmassy cookie cutters. Tried to order Frosty and Santa online but the delivery dates were after the 25th.  Slight tweak. Drew the outline of a Christmas tree on parchment paper. It worked. When I tried to shape it with my tropical cookie dough that contained nuts, candied ginger, chocolate bits and coconut flakes, it was non-compliant.  I managed a rustic Christmas tree cookie. I read somewhere that sugar or gingerbread cookies hold their shape better but I am not keen on the taste nor is my husband. No matter the shape, my one customer liked it so much he chipped at it little by little, and ate the whole tree in a day. 

My fourth dessert was chocolate roll. I recommend going to Kitchen Stories, and watching Hanna make perfect mini sponge chocolate rolls. I quartered her recipe and still managed to produce two mini chocolate rolls. In place of cream, I used raspberry jam and peanuts and peanut butter and peanuts.  And, decorated them with icing sugar sprinkled over my homemade parchment paper cut-outs of Frosty and a Santa hat. They weren’t hugely successful with my husband but I had so much fun baking and rolling almost perfect no-break, no-tear chocolate rolls. The verdict was 3 ‘yeas’ and 1 ‘nay.’ Not bad as I had 4 really enjoyable ‘yeas’ baking them. All 4 desserts missed the traditional look and taste benchmark. But contained enough varied ingredients and flavours that made them surprisingly alright.

Christmas Day was quietly nice. Every year we moan in jest about what to buy for each other. And, every year we manage to buy many small and big, fun and functional presents to open Christmas morning. Christmas dinner was a platter of turkey roulade, red snapper and beef tenderloin. With vegetables like beetroot, Brussel sprouts, pumpkin and potatoes. It was at Souled Out, our go-to restaurant most weekends. The menu there is extensive. Food is predictably delicious. Service is prompt and good. Plus, we have our own ‘reserved’ table in a little corner, away from people. 

All in all it was a happy Christmas 2020.