Borough Market Christmas Residency - The Baking Backpacker

I’m so excited about my new blog design!! Huge thanks to those at Pipdig who both designed my new template but also made the switch so much easier by doing it for me! And it makes the perfect time to blog about my recent festive celebrations up at Borough Market for my first blogger event!

I was invited up to London one Tuesday night to a preview of their Festive celebrations with Katherine Frelon. Once known as the Scatty Chef Katherine is a regular at the demo kitchen in the market and will be taking up a residency at the market this Christmas. Her plan is to take the scattiness out of your Christmas planning by showing you small things to do in the lead up to Christmas and on the day itself to take away any pain or grief! Sounds perfect right!!

I am that person who cannot wait for December 1st to roll around so being invited to a Christmas event mid-November was an absolute no-brainer! Borough Market itself was in the final throes of closing up for the night, a cold night at that, so it was incredibly warming to enter the demo kitchen to the smell of mulled cider to greet us. The table was adjourned with Christmas wreaths and set out for an evening of gift making.

Katherine’s residency starts tomorrow on December 1st and runs for three consecutive Thursdays and the best news it is free for everyone to go! Wish I lived closer to London so I could pop along for lunch. It will be at 12:30 to 2pm each Thursday with the theme varying across each session. The first session is edible gifts when Katherine will demonstrate how to create lovely handmade gifts for your friends and family. At our preview we make chocolate bark with turkish delight and tasted her amazing Christmas Chutney. I always love making homemade gifts for Christmas as it just shows so much thought and kindness in the gift and it doesn’t have to be difficult. We got to make the Christmas bark. Really simply you melt dark chocolate and white chocolate and mix the two together topping with anything you fancy. I topped mine with turkish delight and pistachios – delicious. She will also be showing her spiced cider bombs which we got to make too!!

Thursday December 8th covers all the pre-planning for the big day and what you can prepare in advance such as a jewelled cranberry sauce, your mincemeat, mince pies and brandy butter, spiced nuts and even edible place names!! Last but not least Thursday December 15th is the final countdown – how to prepare Christmas dinner with just 60 minutes – live!! What a challenge! And we are talking full turkey and all the trimmings plus a flaming pudding, canapés and cocktails!

Katherine has a great way about her and made everything seem so effortless. Great demo chef and her food was delicious! After making the Christmas bark and spiced bombs we had some bread and cheese, along with a glass of wine, and her amazing chutney which I have to make! And to make the night extra special I got to take away a fantastic goodie bag of Borough Market souvenirs (make excellent gifts for foodies if you need any Christmas present inspiration) and a box of what can only be described as the worlds best Turkish delight (from the Turkish deli at Borough Market).

I met some lovely fellow foodie bloggers on the night too so would recommend having a look!!

Christmas is so close now and to have a helping hand in that lead up why don’t you pop along to Borough Market, to the glass Market Hall on one of the next three Thursdays to learn from the best! Thanks to Ellie and the team at Borough Market!

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