Christmas in July

'Twas the night before Christmas (in July), when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse...

Except for a crazy onslaught of food bloggers and friends who were kindly invited by Billy and The Pom to join them in celebrating Christmas in July! Thanks for letting us invade your kitchen and your house for the night :) 

Of course Christmas just isn't Christmas without being able to gorge yourself on all kinds of food. And indeed we had a great big feast in store that went on well into the night.

We kicked off the night with some snacks and a cheese platter brought by Shez including her yummy home-made labne.

Then the table was set, the Christmas music started playing, a picture of a crackling fireplace appeared on the tv screen and dinner was served! We all marvelled at Billy's beautiful bread wreath which he served with some delicious truffle butter.

Gleaming Maple Cheesecake & Glazed Ham

Christmas has well and truly passed now but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy a nice glazed ham or a festive cheesecake anytime you want. I spent my Christmas at home surrounded by my loving family and lots of delicious food. Two items on our Christmas menu included a glazed ham from Donna Hay and a gleaming maple cheesecake from Nigella Lawson. To see what other food was on offer that day, check out this post!

My cheesecake was well received, although being my fiercest critic I knew it was overbaked and not as light and creamy as it should be. I'm not sure whether to blame my oven or not but I checked it after half the supposed baking time and it already looked done. I took it out about 10 minutes after that and I knew that it had been in the oven for too long since it was missing the wobbly centre.

Despite my mistakes in making this cheesecake, I would definitely make it again. The maple syrup smells fantastic and permeates through the whole cake. And of course, the gleaming layer of maple syrup on top of the cheesecake is a definite crowd-pleaser.

I've also included in this post (just for you, Trissa!) the orange glazed ham that my Mum made. The glaze was delicious except there simply wasn't enough of it, both when it was being glazed and in taste. The recipe below is straight out of the book but I would suggest perhaps making double quantities of the glaze since most of the glaze was already used up the first time the ham came out of the oven. Glazing it a few more times would also help impart more of the flavour onto the ham.