Orchard Blog - Christmas. Archives

Cocktail of the Week | Calum’s Eggnog

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There are always a few things that say Christmas to people. Some will have a particular tradition, no matter how random it is to others, or particular food, that makes their Christmas entirely! For Calum there are a few things that make it Christmas, the first is pork pie for breakfast on Christmas Day (Don’t ask)! and the second is our last cocktail of the week before Christmas, we give you Calum’s Eggnog!

Eggnog is likely to date back to medieval Europe and was developed from a posset drink made with hot milk that was curdled with wine or ale and mixed with spices. These possets were used a cold and flu remedies that made it a winter tradition. The drink appears to have been taken across the Atlantic where the term eggnog was first used in a poem. There are many different versions. In the UK, the drink was popular with the aristocracy who used sherry. Others use rum (Caribbean and Puerto Rico), beer (German) and bourbon (South America). More recently the mix has been used in coffee that has brought it to the masses.

For this week’s cocktail, you will need;

2 pints whole milk
500 ml Single Cream
1 Measure of rum
6 egg yolks
200g sugar
Orange zest
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
Vanilla seeds
Pinch of cinnamon
Pinch of ginger
Pinch of Nutmeg (plus some to garnish)

Take the orange zest, rum, cloves vanilla seed and the pinch of cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg into a jar and add the rum. Leave for 12 hours to infuse. Once ready, mix the egg yolks with the 200g sugar. Mix together the cream, the egg mix and infused rum and heat the mix through to make custard. Start to add the milk to thin the mix out to the consistency of a milkshake. Once completed, chill the drink until cold. When ready, pour the drink into a glass of choice and sprinkle with nutmeg, and there you have this week’s cocktail, Eggnog.

Calum’s recipe has been tried and tested over many years to try and recreate the store bought drink he used to get in Hong Kong. For Calum it is Christmas in a glass, for Richard…not so much. It is a superb drink to have for a party or to enjoy watching your favourite Christmas movie on Christmas Eve.

24th December 2016

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Scandi Inspired Winter Woodland Table

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Orchard Blog

Scandinavian Inspired Winter Woodland Table Theme

This week we had a couple of friends over for a pre Christmas dinner. The fires were lit, we had carols playing and mulled wine to drink, all in all a jolly festive evening. For our table decorations we took more inspiration from our recent trip to Copenhagen and went for a Scandi inspired winter woodland table.

The Inspiration

We found so much inspiration from our recent trip to Copenhagen, so many ideas in so many way. We were particularly taken by the use of natural materials in their Christmas decoration, The Danes don’t do tinsel. We took this as a jumping off point when choosing our scheme, we chose a simple pallet of colours; white of the candles, green of the foliage, brown of the wood and pine cones and then neutral table linens. By using a limited colour palette it made choosing what to include much easier. We had seen this colours used whilst away, and when browsing through some magazines we brought home with us. A quick look at pinterest gave us lots more ideas along this theme.

Shop Scandi

Whilst pottering about Copenhagen we picked up several of the bits we needed for our table centre. If you wanted to replicate this theme you could easily do do within the uk, with the likes of Ikea, H&M Home, Clas Ohlson, Flying Tiger of Copenhagen and now Søstrene Grene all having a UK presence, it is easier than ever to add a bit of Scandi cool into your homes.

Natural Material

We wanted to use plenty of natural materials in our woodland table centre. We found some birch covered candle holders at Søstrene Grene in Copenhagen and the wood tea light holders at a shop called Lagerhaus when we were in Malmö. We put candles in star shape dishes we’d found in H&M Home and in Ikea, surrounding the candles with moss. We cut some branches of seeded eucalyptus from the garden and arranged these with some spruces branches to bring all the elements together. Lastly we placed some pine cones into the display, we have been collecting these from the common from some time, but these were only quite small, we supplemented them with some larger ones we got at a local garden centre.

Candles Galore

We heard that the Danes burn more candles per person than anywhere else on earth, the evidence we saw from our brief trip suggest this is probably true. We get our candles from Ikea and from Flying Tiger of Copenhagen, both have great selection. In addition to the wooden candle holders we found some pretty glass ones from H&M Home, and repurposed some glasses from Flying Tiger. As we chose only white candles they all matched and gave a nice theme.

What do you think?

We really enjoyed making our Scandi inspired winter woodland table centre. It was a lovely cosy table to enjoy a simple meal with friends, we have subsequently gone on an decorated the room further using the table centre s inspiration. If you have any thoughts or ideas please let us know in the comments section or contact us on social media. Read more…

23rd December 2016

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Country Cottage Christmas Porch

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Orchard Blog

Our time living in Rich folk’s cottage is coming to an end. Living in a 400-year-old timbered cottage has lots of benefits, but also lots of drawbacks, especially when we are both over 6 foot tall, and the ceiling and doorways are not. The Cottage really comes into its own at Christmas, we joke that it could have been used at a set in The Holiday.

Country Cottage Christmas Porch

To add to the Christmassy charm of the cottage we decided to decorate a Country Cottage Christmas Porch. We took inspiration from the natural Scandinavian style we saw in Copenhagen and translated this to an English country style.

Christmas Plants

We wanted a selection of different plants to create the display, the porch already has a couple of pyramid conifers, and we had a Christmas tree from last year in a pot that we had been growing on. We moved a couple of herbs we have growing in pots to the display, along with a small olive tree. The Olive branch is a symbol of peace so is wonderfully appropriate for our Christmas display. In addition to moving plants we already had we went to our local garden centre to get some Hyacinths, some Hellebores, a couple of Skimmia and a selection of small conifers

Christmas Foliage

A Christmas wreath is a must for us, we created ours by using a base of spruce and adding in a selection of other evergreen foliage including yew and Scott’s pine collected from the common. We also used this foliage to create a garland for the porch, using floristry wire to hold it together. We bought some mistletoe and a bough of holly, traditional Christmastime plants to add in.

Finishing Touches

Earlier this year we had a Birch tree cut down and the logs cut for our fire through winter. We thought the logs we so beautiful we used a few in our display. We also added in a basket of pine cones we have been collection whilst taking our dog for a walk. Taking inspiration from our Scandinavian trip we needed some light, so we wrapped warm white fairy lights around the garland and some of the plants, and put our a pair of lanterns to creating a welcoming glow as you walk up.

What do you think of our Country Cottage Christmas porch? We hope it makes the cottage welcoming and inviting. Is there anything you would differently, let us know in the comments section, or get in touch on social media.

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Our Old Fashion Jazzy Christmas Playlist

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Orchard Blog

What better music to decorate the tree to than a bit of old-fashioned jazz? We have put together this Christmas Playlist of our favourite Christmas from the 50s and 60s. These were all recorded decades before we were born, but there is something reassuring and friendly about listening to familiar old songs. After you have finished decorating, light a few candles, grab a glass of your favourite tipple, sit back and enjoy! Listen to our Christmas Playlist here.

2nd December 2016

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Inspiration | Three Christmas Living Room Schemes

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Orchard Blog

Christmas really is the most wonderful time of the year! We don’t try and hide our love of the festive season and we have lots of blog posts planned for between now and the big day. Let’s start off by looking at three schemes we have put together for our perfect Christmas living room. We have gone for a trio of contrasting styles so hopefully there is something for everybody. We have put links to the products below each scheme. Let us know your favourites in the comments or contact us on twitter, facebook or Instagram.

29th November 2016

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Top Five | Start of Advent

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Orchard Blog

It has been another busy weekend for us as we prepare for a weekend break and start to think about how we will be decorating the cottage for Christmas. Let’s look at out Top Five and what has kept up going this week.

One

Sunday just gone was the first Advent in Christmas. Being dutiful God-Parents to our Godson Dexter we gave him a toy Nativity set to start the Advent celebrations. We have yet to find a Nativity set that we agree on, but are hopeful we will find one soon.

Two

We have a tradition of watching Christmas movies through December to get us in the mood for Christmas. We started with the 1942 classic “Holiday Inn”. We will spend the rest of the month trying to make sure we fit all the movies in before our final movie, a Muppets Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve.

Three

We made a little trip to Ikea on Sunday to pick some items to make our Christmas gifts. As it is either illegal or impossible to leave Ikea without buying candles we left the store with a large number of them. We will be using them throughout Christmas as they help make the cottage cosy.

Four

We like a good advent calendar and this year we have decided to go for a traditional one, ie without chocolate in it, and found this vintage looking one in John Lewis. Don’t worry, we will still have a chocolate one and will be including the cat and dog as they will also be getting special pet friendly ones too.

Five

We are off to Copenhagen on Thursday for a short weekend, start of Christmas break. This is the second time we are going and are looking forward to the fairy tale feel in the city. It is also predicted to snow, which is equally as exciting.

28th November 2016

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Cocktail of the Week | Mulled Cider

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Orchard Blog

This weekend is the first in Advent, which means only one thing, it is the start of the official countdown to Christmas! We both love Christmas and we usually mark this countdown by getting our advent calendars and making our own first mulled drink, which is our Cocktail of the Week, Mulled Cider.

Mulling drinks over winter is a European tradition. Nearly ever European country has their version of a mulled drink. In the UK it is mulled wine, Germany and Austria it is Glühwein and Nordic Countries it is Gløgg, all of which we have partaken in over the years. The concept of mulling wine and other drinks spread across Europe thanks to the Romans during the 2nd century as they conquered and traded with the countries they passed. The mulled spices we use today vary from country to country. The spices in the English version include cinnamon, ginger, cloves, cardamom and nutmeg. A Medieval version of a mulled wine also included pepper, rosemary and pepper. There is no one recipe for mulled wine and some of the more unique versions can include sausage and savoury herbs or be fortified with other spirits for good measure.

For this week’s cocktail, you will need;

• Cider
• Mulling syrup or spices.

To make this week’s drink, pour the cider into a saucepan and heat gently. Add the syrup or spices and bring to a boil. If you are using spices add a a little bit of sugar. Once boiled, allow the cider to cool slightly and ladle into a glass or mug. Add some apple, cinnamon or star anise and you have this week cocktail, Mulled Cider.

Any mulled drink is an enjoyable drink to have on a winter’s night with your feet up next to the fire and mulled cider is one of our favourites. That said, we are always happy to have a mulled drink when it is available.