Bonfire Night

Last week, my flatmates and I decided to host a very last-minute bonfire night get-together. As it fell on a Monday this year, I was off work on the day of the party and took it upon myself to get things together and make it a little bit more special than just a fire at the end of the garden. I come into my element when you label something as an event, and there were a few things I was adamant our guests should be provided (and delighted) with: toffee apples and hot, mulled cider (click-through for recipes); marshmallows on sticks; baked bananas oozing the darkest, richest chocolate; and sparklers.

The pumpkin lantern and fireside snacks.

Of course, if I'm going to have guests I'm going to spruce the place up a little. The fire was at the end of our rather long garden, so I studded the path with tealights in glass jars to light the way, finishing with a pair of lights in the archway through to the bonfire, where a pumpkin flickered next to dishes of sweet treats. We banked the fire up, watched it fizzle, roar into life and then die right down again all before our guests arrived. Luckily we coaxed a bit more life out of it and soon the air was filled by the snaps and warmth of a good bonfire, and the chatter of friends. I ladled out the hot, fragrant cider and someone came clutching a bag of corn for popping, so we covered it in a pan nestled in the brightly burning embers.

Poaching a view of someone else's fireworks.

Fireworks lit up the sky, mainly courtesy of our neighbours or a local display, we didn't know which. A guest also arrived with a small box which, when let off, fizzed upwards into the night as we gazed upwards. I doled out the sparklers and we did the usual: circles, lovehearts and furious attempts to write our names so that the letters all hung in the air at once.

"Kitt" - just one letter shy of managing to write my name with a sparkler.

The big, organised displays can be impressive but this girl is a convert: a back-garden get-together with hot booze and idle chat can be even better.

Snapshots of late: easing into winter

Having moved to Bristol in the cool, dark blink of an eye on a scorching day late in July, I held onto that summery feeling for a lot longer than usual. All of a sudden we were well into autumn and I still felt the holiday buzz that comes with exploring a new place - and still do. For that reason, the seasons are flying by and soon we'll be racing down the hill towards Christmas, wrapped up in woollen embraces with old friends and those we once knew. Looking back at a few photographs from the last month or two charts the steady slip into winter proper. There's finally a bite in the air and it's exciting!

1. Cute critters in St. Werburgh's. 2. St. Andrew's Park. 3. Guerilla knitting in the park.

4. Late pumpkin carving - a glowing heart for bonfire night, 5. Fancy dress: my skeleton get-up for hallowe'en this year.

6. The best thing about the biting wind is escaping it in the cosiest of cafés. City Farm café at St Werburgh's. It reminds me of a hobbit hole and is one of my current favourite places!

7&8. The German Christmas market has colonised Broadmead. I've convinced myself (after a mulled wine or two) that I'm a whizz on iceskates.

Mulled cider: a recipe

The Monomyth: diving into a vat of hot, spiced cider

For bonfire night this year, I decided that our cockles needed thoroughly warming on what promised to be a crisp November night, and what better way to warm them than with hot, spiced cider? However, lacking an internet connection I had to improvise- and in doing so made the best mulled cider I have ever tasted. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients
2L cider (and this can be topped up!)
3 apples
1 orange
1 lemon
cloves
fresh ginger root
2-3 cinnamon sticks
dried juniper berries
100g demerara sugar

• Quarter the apples and stud the flesh with cloves. Add to a large pan (preferably one with a lid as it'll really help when bringing such a large volume of liquid to the boil).
• Grate the rinds of the lemon and orange into the pan. Add the juice. Slice the remaining fruit into the pan too.
• Grate in fresh root ginger.
• Add everything else and bring to the boil.
• Top up with more cider if when needed!

Serve out with a ladle into paper cups or assorted mugs. When our pan of cider began to cool, I replaced the lid and tucked it into the embers of the bonfire, but if you try this, make sure it's a pan that will withstand being right inside the fire!

Enjoy!

Toffee apples: a recipe

Following Apple Day and an impulse-bought bag of reduced English Russets, I felt inspired to make my own toffee apples. In the past, the only toffee apples I had ever bitten into were the ruby red crackle of fairground apples on bleached sticks. The apple I bought at Boiling Wells reminded me that you can recreate culinary memories in your own kitchen and I looked up a couple of recipes and worked out my own version of this autumnal classic.

Toffee apple recipe - try it yourself!

Once the sugar dissolves, the water is still clear but you can see crystals forming. The vinegar struck me as odd and I hesitated because I only had balsamic and wasn’t sure if that would be okay, but as soon as I added a splash, that fairground toffee aroma suddenly hit me and I knew it was just right. As a nod to the toffee apples of my childhood memories, I added a generous splash of natural red food colouring. You don’t need this but it’s good fun. You could add different colours- wouldn’t a green toffee apple be perfect for a creepy hallowe’en treat? One recipe suggested using a thermometer and, if you’ve got one, this will cut out the only real bit of work involved: determining when the toffee is ready for coating.  If not, do as I did and boil the toffee (I was worried I’d burn it so kept monitoring the mixture, adjusting the heat and checking it every now and then) until it is ready. To test this out, have a bowl of cold water close at hand and pour a little of the toffee mixture into it. If it remains gooey and squishable when in the water, it needs to boil for longer. If it immediately solidifies and shatters when you pick it up and bend it, it’s ready for your apples (and the splintering sample is a tasty treat while you coat them!).

Splintering red toffee on a russet apple makes for an exciting autumn treat!

Lolly sticks or even wooden skewers, depending on the size of your apples, would be perfect for this but I had neither so trimmed down some dry twigs from the garden – it’s not as though you eat the stick! Depending on the type of apples you’re using, they may have a waxy coating on them. The toffee won’t stick properly to this, so soak the apples for five minutes in a bowl of boiling water to remove it. You can do this while you’re waiting for the toffee to be ready. Mine were local produce and didn’t have this coating, so I cut out that step!

The toffee sets almost immediately. Depending on when you want to serve the apples, you could refrigerate them but I found that this actually had a detrimental effect on the coating: the toffee had softened a little on some of the apples and slid down them. That said, this may have just been down to the mixture being cooler when I coated those apples and nothing to do with the fridge!

Serve however you want. I pierced some paper cupcake cases with the sticks and slid them over the base of the apple to keep the sticky toffee off eager fingers! I thought it made a pretty finishing touch. I took my apples along to an early hallowe’en gathering with friends. At the end of the night, people clamoured to try one! They’d also be perfect for a kids’ party, a bonfire night gathering, for trick-or-treaters this Wednesday or just for your own indulgence!

My toffee apples took pride of place in Lori's hallowe'en spread!

What do you associate toffee apples with? Are there any other goodies that this time of year has you yearning for?