Christmas in July: Dot Com Gift Shop

The second of the Christmas press launches I went to one day this month was the Dot Com Gift Shop; they have a wide range of gifts and homewares and it's worth keeping an eye on their website both for new products and for when they have sales.

The event was a good opportunity to chat to the PR about the new ranges, best sellers and Christmas trends. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what's the best gift of them all?

The room was laid out with different tables and shelves giving quite a quirky and pretty effect -much like a lot of their products.

This new range of travel accessories looked cool and would make a good gift for men or women

I loved these - the caravan is a bird box that you hang outside on a tree, and the flamingo is a watering can!

The Dot Com Gift Shop also has a lot of more traditional gifts - I used to love this sort of thing when I was a kid.

They have a range of animal characters and most recently introduced Rusty the Fox about two years ago; this year meet Elvis the elephant!

I like these kitchen products too

These push-out cookie cutters mean you get the perfect shape. I like the pretzel shaped one near the top in particular. I might have to get these and do some baking!

 

Dot Com Gift Shop: Christmas in July

For the third year running I went to the Dot Com Gift Shop Christmas event - in July! This time the Christmas decorations were fairly minimal and instead it was more about showcasing their new ranges which will be on the website shortly.

I love the Dot Com Gift Shop - they have some brilliant gifts for cooks and bakers, and loads of brilliant things for kids. They've even got a sale on at the moment with up to 90% off, and I've taken the chance to buy a few bits and pieces for pennies!

I love the colours and patterns of these plates and how neat they look arranged on shelves:

I could do with this sign in my house.... though it would need to say girlfriend, not wife.

A wide shot of all the goodies on display

These glass baubles are much larger than your average Christmas decoration and would look great all year round

Of course I made a beeline for the baking stuff.... these are little sets of bunting to put on top of a cake, in a range of child-friendly designs.

This new range of bird print stationery and tableware is really pretty.

I also found out this evening that the best selling item on the Dot Com Gift Shop is .... this bunny night-light. Even my boyfriend has one of these (and no, I didn't buy it for him!). I look forward to seeing these items on the website and also to seeing what ranges other retailers have in store - even though as far as I'm concerned it's far too early to think about Christmas!

Chocolate, Toffee and Pear Mug Cake and Fruit Bow Review

The Dot Com Gift Shop is one of my favourite online retailers as they have such a broad range of gifts and so many of them are themed around cooking, baking and kitchenware - I have a few gifts earmarked to purchase this Christmas!

They recently sent me a fruit bowl to review, that I think would make a great Christmas gift. It comes in two parts but it's very easy to screw on the base - you don't even need a screwdriver. It's a large bowl so would be good for people with families or who eat a lot of fruit - though it's also a good way to encourage people to get their five a day!

I love the design; the white wire work would fit in almost any kitchen décor and it looks both modern and a bit vintage at the same time, if such a thing is possible! It costs £19.95 which I think is a good price for the size and quality.

I filled my fruit bowl as soon as I received it, leaving me to wonder afterwards what to do with all the fruit! I recently came across a lovely little cookery book called Mug Cakes by Mima Sinclair - I knew you could make cakes in a microwave as I remembered a girl called Kate doing it at university as we didn't have an oven in halls - and a while back I made my own chocolate mug cake. It never occurred to me there could be a whole book of recipes dedicated to microwaving cakes in a mug or that so many flavours and ingredients would work!

I love pears and bought a few for my fruit bowl so when I saw a recipe for chocolate, ginger and pear cake in a mug I decided to try it. I changed it though as I left out the ginger and added toffee sauce instead; the original recipes uses both ground and stem ginger but I had all the other ingredients in the house and liked the idea of just throwing the cake together from what I had. I also used milk chocolate instead of plain which I think gave a more fudgy taste. So this is what I did:

You need:
1 tbsp. softened butter
20g milk chocolate, finely chopped
1/2 an egg, lightly beaten
1 tbsp. semi-skimmed milk
2 tbsp. caster sugar
2 tbsp. self-raising flour
pinch of salt
1 ripe pear, peeled
1 tbsp. toffee sauce

You need to make sure your mug is big enough - the recipe book recommends a 350ml mug. The easiest way to check is to fill a measuring jug with water, pour it into the mug and you will see if it holds 350ml!

Place the butter and chocolate in the mug and microwave for 10-20 seconds until melted.

Add the egg and milk and beat together with a fork.

Add the sugar, flour and salt and mix carefully with the fork until smooth.

Slice the base off the pear so it will sit in the mug and press down gently so it is in the middle of the cake mixture.

Microwave for between 1.5 and 2 minutes depending on the power of your microwave (2 mins for 700 watts, 1 min 50 seconds for 800 watt, 1 min 40 for 900 watt etc). Leave to cool before you eat! To serve, spoon a little toffee sauce over the top - I used a jar of ready made toffee sauce I found in Lidl or you could use the squeezy toffee sauce you can buy to go over ice cream, or Carnation caramel, or make your own.

I wasn't expecting  much from a cake made in a mug in a microwave but this was amazing. The cake was just the right consistency and the pear softened beautifully; the flavours worked well together and this is definitely something I would make again.

 

 

I'm sending this to Cook Blog Share, hosted by Lucy at Supergoldenbakes.

Christmas Advent Calendar

Hands up if you're already getting excited about Christmas? As a child I loved the countdown to Christmas that was marked by opening a window in my advent calendar every day. My sister and I had advent calendars with bright, jolly pictures behind the windows, and as we got a bit older we were allowed to have chocolate advent calendars, which felt like such a treat! Now of course you can buy some amazing advent calendars - he got me the 2013 version of this Ciate advent calendar last year which had a pot of mini nail varnish behind each window! And I have a feeling that he is after the Lego advent calendar this year....

But you don't have to spend a lot on advent calendars - you can pick them up in the poundshop including branded children's cartoon character ones, which should keep most kids happy for under a quid.

Sometimes though it's nice to add the personal touch and give something home made. Last year I found this cardboard Santa in Ikea's January sale for only 50p, and kept it right through until Christmas. It stands about two feet tall and has little cardboard boxes that you can slide out and open to place a treat inside. It's freestanding which means you could place it anywhere around the house.

I filled the boxes with all sorts of things. I bought a box of Cadbury's Miniature Heroes and spread them throughout the boxes, making sure he wouldn't find the same thing on consecutive days. I then hunted high and low in shops and on Ebay, to find little gifts that would fit inside the boxes. The treats ranged from a key ring to a mini magic puzzle to some tiny Lego figurines. If you were giving this to a woman, you could use the boxes for jewellery (either costume jewellery from Claire's Accessories or something more expensive), lipgloss, nail varnish, and so on.

The beauty of these boxes is that the recipient won't know what is inside - if indeed there is anything inside. So you could also give some baked treats, either homemade or shop bought, but place them inside the relevant day's box nearer the time. Just make sure you get there first so they don't open an empty box in the morning!

Last year I baked some advent cookies with cookie cutters from the Dot Com Gift Shop;  you could make smaller versions of these or bake something like these Hershey's Kisses thumbprint cookies. 
Women and children would love these homemade bath fizzers, which can also be made small enough to fit inside an advent calendar.

The Dot Com Gift Shop, one of my favourite online shops, has some brilliant advent calendars. There are traditional ones with picture windows to open, featuring Santa or their cute character Rusty the Fox, but I particularly like these advent gift bags - they are a really good size so you would have a lot more options for things to put inside, and you could hide them all around the house and make it into a treasure hunt. This house advent calendar is more in the style of the Santa one I used, and would look great on the mantlepiece above the Christmas stockings. And finally, this one is really innovative - a string of advent pegs, all numbered, which you could combine with the gift bags mentioned above, or use to peg on some IOUs or Christmas wishes.

Whatever you do, marking advent - whether it is with a calendar, or a candle, or something else, it's a great way to build the anticipation for Christmas and to make your home feel festive. I can't wait for Christmas now!

Dot Com Gift Shop Christmas Preview and some blogging tips from an expert

 Did you know that retailers launch their Christmas ranges in the middle of summer? The Dot Com Gift Shop is no exception and they invited me once more to their Christmas event last week. It was a great chance to view their product range and ask questions, and mingle with other bloggers - and this year they had a guest speaker, Jenny Wood.

The Dot Com Gift Shop took over a small art gallery for the evening and arranged their wares as if in a shop; there was a Christmas corner but plenty of other products on display, some of which I will highlight below.

 I also thought I would share with you some of Jenny's top blogging tips. Jenny is a lifestyle and features journalist who has worked for a variety of magazines, now as a freelancer. She also has a great blog, Treasure Hunter UK, which features all sorts of items she loves for the home, fashion and gifts, and most importantly they are affordable.

Jenny giving her talk

Jenny's tips for good blogging include:
- Really think about the way you write your blog entries - treat each one as a separate magazine article. Make it newsy or topical, and think about why someone might want to read it - are you telling them something new, or giving them something genuinely interesting? While some people start blogs just for themselves, you do need to write for your reader if you are going to be successful.

Retro gift range

- And as with a magazine, think about how your blog posts link together. People often read one blog post then go on to read older ones underneath, so mix it up a bit - if you present readers with a long, serious post, make the next one shorter or amusing, and break up your page with lists, bullet points - anything to vary the pace. You could also feature regular slots like "Three on Thursday" of three things you like.

So cute!

- Keep the same voice in your blog posts (that is, allow your personality to come through) and keep that voice across all social media. If you sometimes tweet about your blog posts or related topics, but sometimes tweet to your friends about last night in the pub, consider having a personal Twitter and a 'business' (blog) Twitter!

Chocolate - without the calories. It's lip balm!

- Engage your readers; ask questions and invite them to tell you something specific in the comments section, and make sure you reply! If you can host competitions or give your readers discounts (e.g. ask a retailer to provide you with a special 10% off code in return for promoting them) then your readers will come back for more.

You can play at being a shop keeper

- Stay connected with other blogs; comment on other people's posts and offer to write guest posts. Enter every blogging competition you can find; even if you don't win, you will find it helps you get on the radar for PRs and other blogs.

Decorative vintage ornaments

Thanks to the Dot Com Gift Shop for inviting me to the event. Pssst, they've got a sale on at the moment!

Chocolate Box Birthday Cake

I asked my boyfriend what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday and he said chocolate. So I decided to go one better and make him a box of chocolates, in the form of cake! I had seen a few of these on the internet, including a very pretty one in a heart-shaped box for Valentine's day, but thought that a square box would look the most authentic.

You can use any chocolate cake recipe and make a square cake. I doubled the quantity and made two cakes that I could sandwich together with chocolate ganache.

I used some ready-to-roll fondant from Renshaw in teddy bear brown. Place the cake on a cake board and cut a strip of fondant to go around the base of the cake. It needs to be at least an inch wide or more if you prefer.

Next cover the top of the cake with a flat piece of fondant, then make a piece for each side. I mixed the fondant with a little CMC to make it stiffer; it helps if you leave it for about ten minutes after you've cut the piece out to harden slightly. The side pieces need to sit within the base so the base still sticks out a little, and they need to be about an inch higher than the top of the cake. Stick the pieces on with a little chocolate ganache.

Continue until all sides are complete.

You will need a selection of chocolates to go on top of the cake which you can either buy or make. I decided to make them myself, as I was sent these moulds to review by the Dot Com Gift Shop.

I have explained in a previous post how I made these chocolates which are like Rolos, and taste gorgeous.

I also explained in an earlier post how I made these heart-shaped cake balls.

My favourites from any box of chocolates when I was younger was always the orange cream slice, so I wanted to make some of these as well. I melted some Terry's chocolate orange in the microwave.

I had this orange segment mould that I picked up in the sale from Lakeland a while ago.

I decided to make a truffle centre for the chocolates, so I made a chocolate ganache from melted chocolate and double cream and a dash of Cointreau.

To make the chocolates, brush some melted chocolate - using either a silicon pastry brush or the back of a teaspoon - into the mould, leaving enough space in the middle to fill. Put in the fridge until set. Then add the filling - the Cointreau ganache - and melt some more chocolate. Allow the melted chocolate to cool a little then pour into the moulds to fill them. Refrigerate until required.

These have a wonderfully soft filling when you bite into them and taste delicious.

Finally I made some cake balls, exactly the same as cake pops without the sticks, by mixing crumbled cake trimmings from another cake I'd made the day before, with some buttercream. Roll into balls and dip into melted white chocolate and leave to set.

 I added a few Maltesers from a packet as well to fill in the gaps. Here's my collection of chocolates.

Arrange them all on top of the cake. The sides of the cake that you have made higher than the cake really do look like the edges of a box.

As a finishing touch I tied a large gold bow around the box. My boyfriend was really pleased when I presented this to him and it went down very well when his family came over; everyone had a slice of cake and a few of the chocolates from the top. My favourites were the 'Rolos' and orange slices. This cake does take a bit of effort and time but it really is worth it!
 

Heart-Shaped Cake Balls

I described in a previous post how I made my own Rolo chocolates from a mould provided by the Dot Com Gift Shop. They also sent me a heart-shaped mould and some heart-shaped petit four cases to review.

I decided not to make chocolates this time however and instead make cake pops. Usually these are on sticks but they taste so delicious I don't see why you couldn't just make them as bite-sized nibbles and enjoy them that way. I had made a chocolate cake that was part of the same project, which you will be able to read about shortly, and had to trim the cake a bit. So I had some leftover cake trimmings which I crumbled up into a bowl.

I mixed it with some chocolate buttercream to make a dough.

Simply press the mixture into the moulds and place in the fridge for a little while to firm up.

As the mould is silicon it is completely flexible, making it very easy to turn the shapes out. You could also dip them in melted chocolate to coat them.

The Dot Com Gift Shop also sent me these mini heart-shaped petit four cases, which are just the right size to use with the mould.

Simply place the cake shapes or your chocolates into the cases to serve.

Disclaimer: I was sent these products free of charge by the Dot Com Gift Shop. I was not asked to write a positive review and all opinions are my own.