Sweet Treats,

I have been playing around with a few gift ideas.

Coconut Ice

125g Icing sugar.
75g desiccated coconut.
5 tbsp condensed milk.
Red food colouring,

Put the icing sugar, coconut and condensed milk into a bowl. Bring everything together to form a stiff paste. Divide in half and a a few drops of the red food colouring to 1 half.  You are going for a pale pink colour. Knead until evenly coloured. sprinkle icing sugar onto the worktop and shape the white piece into a sausage and flatten. Do the same with the pink piece. Put 1 on top of the other and gently press together.
Leave on a sheet of parchment sprinkled with icing sugar to dry out for a 2-3 hours.
Cut into 16 pieces and store in a airtight box.

Peppermint Bark.

This is very easy.

200g of chocolate of your choice. I used dark 60 percent cocoa solid.
6 candy canes.
 peppermint extract.

line a baking tray with parchment. Put the cany canes into a plastic bag and smash up.
Melt the chocolate in the microwave in 30 second blasts stirring between blast.
Add a few drops of peppermint extract depending how minty you like it,
Stir in 1/3 of the candy canes.
Pour the chocolate onto the baking sheet and spread. sprinkle on the rest of the candy canes. leave to set. Then break up into pieces. Store in a airtight box.
If it is left out the candy canes will absorb moisture and be tacky.

Both of these will keep for 2-3 weeks and be packaged up for gifts,