Hello hello! Can you believe Christmas is just THREE DAYS AWAY? This bizarre year seems to have gone by both at a snail's pace but also at breakneck speed. Phew. I just realised I never blogged Christmas 2020, and desperately want to blog it now. I obviously posted all about it on Instagram and Instagram Stories, but I really felt the need to record it properly here on ye olde blog. I'm always on Instagram and genuinely love using it like a food diary, and sharing those "slice of life" type posts that used to be a mainstay of old-school food blogging. However, for me things aren't really official unless they're on the blog! And I figure that in years to come I'll want to look back and see what I did in Christmas 2020. So here we go! So, December 2020. Melbourne was coming out of its long second lockdown and enjoying extremely low COVID cases and many donut days - with no idea that Delta and four further lockdowns were lurking around the corner. The weather was warm, we were tentatively catching up with friends and family again and life was good! It was also our first Christmas with little Maya, and even though she was too little to remember it, we wanted to make it special. We got these cute Christmas decorations from Target, which I loved because they're teeny tiny German Christmas market stalls! I baked quite a few Christmas cookies - Nußmakronen , Vanillekipferl , Spekulatius, and even some baby-friendly teething biscuits using the pretty moulds that my sister-in-law sent us from Germany. And here's my first Bunter Teller! I bought my first panettone - a cute little mini-Galup brand one. Delicious! Here's a random Christmassy hot chocolate in an old Glühwein mug. On Christmas Eve, we had a regular dinner at home (actually totes delicious delivery from Malay Kitchen), and followed it with a little chocolate cherry pavlova . So festive! (It was a reduced-quantity version of Nigella's chocolate raspberry pavlova from Forever Summer , with cherries instead of raspberries). For Christmas day, I pushed out the boat and made a huge Roasted Peach and Custard Trifle for dessert. In the lead-up to Christmas, Nat from Beatrix posted some Christmas ideas on her Instagram stories using the recipes from her book. This one comprised layers of sponge cake, custard, pink sparkling wine jelly, roast peaches and whipped cream. She suggested adding amaretti for a textural component but I can't stand them, so I substituted my homemade spekulatius. It was so good and so festive! Of course, Christmas lunch needs savoury food too. We had lunch with my parents, and Sandra and I made a ham, potato gratin and red cabbage, which we served with apple sauce and a little mustard. I was lucky enough to receive some lovely foodie presents - including a magnificent Dolce & Gabbana chestnut and chocolate panettone, some gorgeous ceramics made by local artist Yen Qin (also a friend of mine), and some delicious Christmassy Koko Black chocolates. (My fave local chocolate pralines!) Check out the panettone ! So delicious, so beautiful! They're expensive but worth an occasional splurge! There were lots of Christmas leftovers . Lots! Dad somehow bought the biggest ham imaginable, and there was much hammy deliciousness over the next few days. And once the panettone started to go stale, I made Nigella's Italian Christmas pudding cake and her Panettone French toast (both recipes from Nigellissima ). And I'll just sneak this New Years' Eve photo in here as well. Sandra and I were exhausted and wanted to stay home, but to keep it feeling like an occasion, I made NYE-celebration appropriate food for us to eat for dinner. We had cheese cubes and grape canapés, bread rolls, pão de queijo (store bought), devilled eggs, and scarlet prawns and a lobster tail with burnt butter lemon garlic sauce. Hilariously, I'd bought champagne but was too exhausted to open it on NYE, so I had a sneaky mimosa with lunch on New Year's Day itself. So that was Christmas 2020! At the time I felt that the celebrations were restrained, but looking back I can see there were lots of very fun and special moments! I hope that life is treating you well and that you're keeping safe, and that the festive season is looking good for you, even if it's different to years gone by. Black Forest Cake I don't actually like the taste of glacé cherries, but they just look so right here that I can't leave them out or replace them with fresh stemmed cherries. I use Lindt hot chocolate flakes for the flakes, but I think a crushed Flake bar would also work, or if you're feeling energetic you could chop some chocolate yourself. I don't do chocolate flakes on the side because most Black Forest cakes that I've seen in Germany have nude sides, and crucially, I couldn't figure out how to put chocolate flakes on the sides without creating a huge mess or ruining the top and edges of the cake. I really liked the way it looked, but that's probably a good skill for me to learn in the future - if you've got any tips, please leave a comment! This recipe makes a 20cm diameter cake, which is very small by German standards, but well, standard, by Australian standards. (I also picked a 20cm cake because the Beatrix sponges are 20cm cakes and I don't dare tinker with Nat's perfect base recipes!) I piped 12 rosettes for 12 slices, but the cake is so light and airy that I think that cutting it into 8 slices is totally achievable. (I know I could certainly smash an eighth of this cake in one go!) Chicken and Asparagus Pot Pie Chicken and Asparagus Pot Pie. A cosy, family-friendly meal that's simple to make, full of vegetables, and really delicious! Think gorgeously golden flaky buttery pastry melding into a super tasty saucy chicken and vegetable filling. Yum. 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