Christmas Shortbread Jars

Today I quickly made some homemade little gifts for my friends.  I altered my shortbread recipe until it fit into these little jars I got from Ikea  called Korken

For my wedding favours I did the same but in mini milk bottles and they worked out really well so I just copied this but had to work out how the recipe would fit in different jars.  As usual I just guessed until I got it right 🤣

For the Ikea size of jar I needed 50g of plain flour, 25g of caster sugar and 25g of cornflour.

First I weighed out the plain flour and poured this in to the glass jars followed by the caster sugar and finished off with the cornflour.  

 I love how white they are and the cornflour is so smooth it feels like snow 🌨 

I tried to print off labels but as usual there was an issue with my printer when I needed it isn't that always the case?!  So I handwrote the instructions on brown card.  All you need is to add 50g of salted butter.  By hand or in a food processor mix everything together, roll out thinly and cut using a festive cookie cutter for Christmas biscuits.  Bake for 30 mins at 150°C or Gas Mark 2 (they will still be very pale) then immediately sprinkle with caster sugar.  Allow to cool completely before eating them.  Yum!! 

I rolled the instructions up and put them through the little metal handles.   For my wedding milk bottles I hung them with string and used vintage fabric cut into circles for the top of the bottles.





















I finished the Christmas jars off with some green and white twine.  Lovely festive little gifts when it's just the thought that counts.  I think I will give my neighbour one of these too.  I gave my daughter's teacher something similar one year also.  I do love a homemade gift and these are really easy to make and equally easy for the recipient to bake.  I am not sure how many biscuits this mix will make as it depends on the size of cutter you use but enough for you to eat with your festive cuppy! 

Let me know if you make these shorties yourself this year and who you would give them to!


For more recipes see my other posts here

Organising my Pantry

One of the very first things I loved when I came to see my new house was the space I would change to a pantry.  I never thought we would move to this house it needed so much work and we didn't want to move in with my Mum and Dad for ages between selling and buying so it was just like a dream house in the background.  But when things fell through with the new style house we were going to buy it made us step back and look properly at all that was on offer and we kept coming back to this one.

It has the most beautiful view (Summer time view but the Autumn one is pretty amazing too!)



The inside of the house needed quite a lot of work just to bring it back up to date.  We moved in after having the house for 6 weeks and in that time we have put in a kitchen, two new bathrooms, carpeted the upstairs and wooden floored the downstairs.  Windows upstairs are now going in and the woodburner stove is next.  That should be us for a while :D

The pantry I had planned out was just a bit off the kitchen when we first came to see the house and the couple had used it to keep their washing machines in.

Grant stripped everything out ready for it to be painted by my Dad

And a wee help from Sturrock 

        We got the beautiful floor laid throughout the whole of the bottom floor (engineered wood)

The joiners made me some shelving after lots of pinning to see what would be the best layout.  I got a laminate worktop in here because we didn't have enough of the oak worktop left from the kitchen (and I couldn't justify buying more of the expensive worktop for my pantry!) 

Lots more painting for my Dad - he has been very handy since we moved in - luckily he retired this year (as a Painter & Decorator!) so we had him full time 

And after lots of stress discussion we finally decided on a door  

Since completing the shelving we were still getting parts of the kitchen finished so the pantry ended up being the dumping ground for lots of things that had no business being there.  It has been winding me up for a few weeks now and I finally decided that this weekend I would get it sorted the way I first envisioned 

Yuck! 

First of all I went to the garage where I still have a lot in storage.  I have a lot of stuff!!  Shhh don't tell Grant he was right.  I got all my Kilner and clip-top jars washed and ready then organised all my baking ingredients.

I bought these baskets from East 2 Eden and filled them up with other ingredients like baking powder, vanilla essence and things that didn't need a big Kilner jar to display them 

I'm a bit Kilner obsessed - just this week I bought more Kilner jars that I attempted to paint so when I found these Kilner crates in East 2 Eden too I had to buy them.  I have put some little jars I make mini trifles in like at our Easter picnic and my measuring scales

I am sure I will end up changing things around or adding more to it but it was quite difficult seeing what I had and what was the best way to store it or display it.  I spent the entire day today arranging what is the smallest room in my house :) 

Food colourings in their tiny little cupboard I had at my last house and decided to keep

I still love to make cakes and the kids have all had their birthdays this year (Sturrock's aeroplane party and Eliza's Princess and the Wizard party)  Finlay didn't have a party he went to a trampoline park with some friends and I made him this cake (Faze is some sort of YouTube clan he watches I am not entirely sure!) 

I had to make this at my Sister's again as it is Finlay's birthday a couple of days after Sturrock's and Mum's oven had broken - luckily not the saga that was Sturrock's cake making!

So delighted I now have my own kitchen and even better my mega organised pantry to so I can lay my hand on whatever cake making tool or ingredient I want.

My recipe books have found a new home and my cake tins all stack neatly too

Even my sewing machine got a look in 

Dodgy painted Kilner from earlier in the week - now houses my paint brushes for any other poor unsuspecting Kilners 

Here are the other two with Grant's tassimo - empty for now but think I will fill them with sugar for his coffees 

 Showing off a few of our wedding presents and favourite makes:  Pampered Chef, Le Creuset, Kilner, Mason Cash

My Cricut just fit and no more.  Not used it for a while since I made baby thank you cards after Sturrock was born but I got my money's worth at my wedding which I have yet to blog about because I did so many home made things I hope I can find all the photos to share one day.. (Here are a few projects I have used it for before ) 

Along the tops of my shelves I put my drinks dispensers (I don't know why I have so many and I still have one in storage I just love them so much!)  I stored my rolling pins in one as they didn't fit nicely into my wicker baskets.

My beautiful Kitchen Aid sitting in the window (next to my ugly microwave - sometimes I do wonder about my taste - I liked this bl**dy awful colour once upon a time and thought it made a good addition to my kitchen.  Check out the terrible wallpaper I liked in this post)  I will be updating my microwave at some point but until then it is hidden out of my lovely new kitchen and ruining my perfect pantry)

 The shelves underneath the worktop on one side are very narrow because of pipes behind them but they fit my ugly but easily most used item in my house - mini Dyson hoover.  We have two budgies I need to hoover under their cage daily! The floor has a hatch to get underneath the house so the pantry was the perfect place to put that out of sight.

 The other side stores my cake boxes and I found the underhanging shelf at East 2 Eden also - I am keeping all my steam cleaner attachments and cloths in here

 Actual pantry items!  Spare kitchen roll and bin bags.  I will probably change this it is ruining the feel :)

 My new slow cooker - yet to be trialled 

One of the very best most useful parts of the pantry is that I didn't get the shelves to go right to the door - I left a small area for dustpans and brushes.  I am so delighted with it - it's the small things!  The combination of  the wooden floors and the volume of traffic right now with joiners, electricians, tilers etc coming through the house means the dustpan and brush can never be too far from hand.  Now they have the perfect home.

Could I love my pantry any more????

And still space to fill...I thought I had too much stuff.  Grant was wrong afterall!!!

Kilner Painting: it didn't go well....

Painted Kilner jars - seemed pretty straightforward.......

Who was I kidding?  I never take the right steps and prepare properly I just go in gung ho 😡

Delighted by my find in Home Bargains I purchased lovely little Kilner jars for 79p each!!!  I had just come from a shop where the same jars were £5.99!  They only had three left - lucky for me because I always go mad when I see a bargain and would have stockpiled Kilner jars I didn't need.

I knew I had some Annie Sloan at home but they had seen better days. They were in storage in a cold garage from January to June so I really should have known better.  The pure white one looked ok just the tin looked rusty.  The sample pots though were dried to the bottom.  But did I let that stop me?   No I just cracked on with the advice "a little bit of water and they will be fine"...My mother in law also gave me some Rustoleum in Flint so I was all the road.

First coat and the Rustoleum did not do well.  Very runny and not a good consistency (never used it before and assuming it was my Mother in law's storage of it that made it this way too).  The Annie Sloan white went on a dream except for tiny air bubbles I am not sure if that is a thing with off paint or what the story is there but I didn't bother googling I just popped the bubbles and left it to dry.  The Annie Sloan duck egg blue sample pot I had was a different story.  As it was totally stuck to the bottom I had to add quite a bit of water to even get it to move.  Then I poured away the excess and tried off and on with different mixing and water consistencies until I decided to add in some of the thicker white paint.  That went very well.

After this stage I watched a You Tube video on how to paint Kilner (yes I should have watched it before.  She painted the bottom of hers AFTER the sides had dried.  Oh.....)

Still looked very simple and I thought I was on to a winner.
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But then it was the next day and I half forgot what she said in her video and I waxed the jars before remembering I was supposed to distress the KILNER lettering.  So I tried to do that and just ended up chipping huge flecks of paint off everywhere.  Instead I touched up those bits as though it had never happened.   Except I didn't keep any of the duck egg blue ensemble I made yesterday did I?? 😐😐

By this stage I realised my plan of tea, coffee and sugar jars were flawed because they didn't open nicely without the lids falling in so I superglued them.  The paint kept rubbing away when I shut the lids despite the wax and I just know my husband will hate them (offshore at the moment!) He hates shabby chic.  So all in all they were a waste of time but very little money.  I acually really like them as little storage jars and I am working on getting my new walk in pantry (💚) organised and I think they will look lovely on the shelves in there and I might even do some more if I find any cheap ones or some of my original ones.  But as tea, coffee, sugar jars they have a lot to answer for.  I even bought label making paper I was so gung ho that these would work out but I have not made the labels yet luckily so can wait to see what they are going to contain

Tell me this was not a fool-proof project or am I just a fool?

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