Cheaters Festive Fondant Fancies: 

• 1kg ready-to-roll icing block
• blue and green food colouring
• 20cm square, or a 30 x 20cm traybake cake
• decorate with sprinkles , sugared almonds, mini marshmallows and small gingerbread men (we used Marks & Spencer Gingerbread men, 99p for 9)

 

1. Put your ready-to-roll icing block in a large bowl and pour over boiling water to cover. After 10-15 mins the icing should be soft. Pour off water, and mix icing in bowl, adding a dribble more hot water until you get a smooth, runny but thickish icing. Divide evenly in 3 and add a little blue colouring to one third, and a little blue and green colouring to another third.
2. Slice a 20cm square, or a 30 x 20cm traybake cake into roughly equal, portion-sized squares, and sit them on a wire rack above a large tray.
3. Spoon some icing over each cake to cover, then decorate with sprinkles, sugared almonds, mini marshmallows and small gingerbread men.

Chocolate Crispie Christmas Wreaths
Makes 4:> You need 25g Butter. 2tbsp Golden Syrup. 150g Chocolate. 100g Rice Crispies. 

1. Place the butter and syrup in a small pan and heat gently until the butter has melted.
2. Add the chocolate and stir until it has melted and the mixture is smooth.
3. Stir in the rice crispies until well coated in chocolate.
4. Line a baking tray with baking parchment and place teaspoonfuls in a small ring shape onto the paper.
5. Allow to cool in the fridge for 10 mins until firm, then decorate with Silver Spoon edible decorations, add a ribbon tied in a bow. 

Check out this website for millions of Christmas Oreo recipes!

Or for lots of proper Christmas recipes from Chocolate Peppermint Crunch cookies to Lime Coconut Snowballs to Red Velvet Cheesecake cookies to Lemony Lemon Bread to Homemade Cranberry Bliss Bars to Almond Crescents to Chocolate Chestnut Yule Log to Cranberry Orange Christmas Cake 
Check out here and here and here. 

One of The Blake Society’s talks this term involved a chat with 
Downing alumnus and investigative journalist Iain Overton. Georgina Phillips comments…

 Iain Overton  was not what I expected. Having compiled an impressive collection of accolades whilst here at Cambridge – everything from dabbling in Footlights to heading up Cambridge RAG – he was also somehow a member of the Patrician’s drinking society and got a First in History. Damn.

 After leaving Cambridge however, Iain appeared to be as clueless as to his future as many of us. In the end he settled with advertising, a profession he liked as he could spend ‘a lot of people’s money without being accountable’, even if he did end up being a copywriter for Pampers.  Overton went on to ‘sell alcohol to Muslims’ in south east Asia, until he wound up waking up in Kuala Lumpur, 600 miles to the north of where he had started that evening with no idea of how he got there. Returning  to Cambridge, (this time to Caius), Iain took an MPhil in International Relations, harbouring dreams of becoming a spy for Mi6. Which apparently he nearly did. Almost.

 Iain went on to work for both the BBC and ITV researching for and making documentaries on everything from dodgy dealings in the pharmaceutical industry to sex trafficking, winning a Peabody award, a BAFTA and several Amnesty awards along the way. He went on to become managing editor of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and worked with Julian Assange on the Wikileaks Iraq War Logs.

 Envious of his many travels and success in print and broadcast journalism, Iain Overton certainly appeared to be a force to be reckoned with. And even though his adventurous curriculum vitae may make many shudder, his life story was also encouraging, reassuring that you don’t have to know exactly what you want to do as soon as you’ve tumbled out of uni. Even something as competitive as journalism can be accessed via many routes, even though Iain admitted that these days the game has changed somewhat, both due to increasing interest in journalism as a career path and the decreasing prominence of print journalism.


POSTSCRIPT Since writing this piece, Iain Overton has resigned as 
head of TBIJ after being embroiled with the BBC Newsnight child abuse 
allegations of Lord McAlpine. Investigations led by Overton and the Bureau led 
to the false accusation. (Overton referred to the release of this information in 
his talk at Downing although he wouldn’t name names – I wonder if his passing 
sentiment of no regrets still stands).

Georgina Phillips

As you might have seen, The Blake Society held a charity art sale last Friday in aid of Children of the Forest. We asked for submissions from both professional artists and students and were overwhelmed by the response we got- by the quality but mainly by the enthusiasm and effort people put into their postcard sized miniature masterpieces. The sale raised £380 which makes us one chuffed arts society and as a thanks to all you creative people here are some motivating videos taken from The Creators Project to keep fuelling the passion. 

  

These beautiful woodcuts were all made by the children of Sangkhlaburi, Thailand as part of the Children of the Forest arts initiative. The original prints will be available to buy at our Champagne, Charity and Chocolates art sale on Friday 16th November. Visit our Facebook page for more information! 
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Blake-Society#!/pages/The-Blake-Society/232633463453365