Following on from last week’s post about Christmas Teasel wreaths and garlands, this week I’m going to show you how to make a homemade Christmas wreath and table name place card holders out of candy canes and also some delicious white chocolate and raspberry treats, perfect for homemade gifts.
Again, I made the wreaths and name card holders last year, but never wrote down how to do it. The homemade sweets I have made this year. Hope you enjoy making them as much as I did.
Homemade Snowball Truffles
Just a warning that if you try making these you will be in danger of having none left by the time you’ve finished. White Chocolate and Raspberry liqueur truffles are absolutely scrumptious and life would be slightly less fabulous without them. However, they are very rich and I felt slightly sick after hoovering them up. Had to make a second batch!
If these are for a Christmas gift then you will need to make them just before you give them to your loved one. They only last three days in the fridge or far less if anywhere near someone called J.P.
What you will need:
- 300g of white chocolate
- 25g butter
- 180ml double cream
- 1-2 tbsp of raspberry liqueur. I used Chambord Black Raspberry Liqueuer.
To decorate:
- Icing sugar
- Dessicated coconut
- White sugar balls or White chocolate mini star edible decorations.
- Mini paper cases
- A gift box – even if they are for you! A girl must have standards!
First, start by breaking up the chocolate and place it in a bowl with the butter. Heat the cream until almost at boiling point. Then, pour it over the chocolate and butter and leave it to melt. Stir until smooth and then set aside to cool.
Using an electric whisk, mix until fluffy and lighter in colour, add the liqueur and chill until firm. Now, a little note on the liqueur: the original recipe says one tablespoon. The first time I tried these I could not taste any raspberry liqueur, so with the second batch I added two tablespoons of liqueur.
Take a teaspoon of the mixture and form into a ball using your hands. Then, just roll each ball in whichever coating you prefer. I greedily decided it would be nice to try all of them. Place them in paper cases and arrange in your gift box. Give them to someone you love or scoff the lot yourself within three days!
Homemade Candy Cane wreath
For one wreath you will need:
- Two boxes of candy canes. I bought mine from Lidl
- A glue gun and glue sticks.
- Two flat round Christmas decorations for the centre. I used hanging snowflakes from B&Q.
- Pretty ribbon to tie at the top of each wreath.
Start by sorting the candy canes into pairs. Don’t unwrap the candy canes! Unless you needed to check whether they were poisonous or not, like I did – yummy!
It might be an idea to buy three boxes as I found that one or two were a bit bent and wouldn’t have been suitable. Also, if you eat one or two, then it doesn’t matter! Next, turn your glue gun on and wait for it to heat up. Make sure you have a glue stick inserted. My cordless glue gun is by Bosch and it’s very good. These get very hot, so please be careful! You can use gloves, but I found that it was hard to work with them on, so I ended up burning my fingers quite a bit.
Take one pair of candy canes. The idea is that you are going to glue them together back to back, so that the curved ends are facing away from each other. Place a dab of glue along each flat edge. Quickly press the two canes together and leave to cool. Continue this until you have glued all the pairs together.
Then, it’s just a case of gluing each set of pairs to the next, creating a circle, or wreath shape. You do this by gluing one pair to another pair, effectively creating and elongated heart shape. See below for illustration. I think I used eight pairs to make a circle. Leave it to cool and dry and then take one of your round flat Christmas decorations and glue into the centre of each wreath. Do the same on the other side if you are planning for the wreath to be seen from both sides.
Lastly, you just need to tie some pretty ribbon to the top and then hang it wherever you like. I used them on the back of chairs, so I needed much longer lengths of ribbon.
Candy Cane table place card holders
These are so easy! Again, pair up your candy canes. Then, just add a dab of glue to the straight edge of each candy cane and glue together at a 45 degree angle. You will need to hold them in place with your fingers for a few minutes to make sure the glue cools in the right position.
Now, just tie and little bow with your pretty ribbon about two centimetres from the top of each pair of canes. The canes should now stand up by themselves when placed on the table curved end downwards. The name card sits in between the two curved canes. Voila!
I hope you have lots of fun making these. I must apologise for some of the photos of the candy cane wreath and holder. They were taken last year just for Instagram stories. I packed my wreath and holders in a very particular box when we moved house recently and can I find it? Can I buffalo! So, I’m afraid my planned photography session has not happened. Anyway, and I’ll be back with more Christmas crafts soon!
