Home Aloooooone

So it's my first full weekend back from uni and my parents have buggered off to Harrogate for the weekend. My sister's gone over to a friends house, too, leaving me sat in my house watching Friends repeats and snuggling with my dog.

It's not so bad, really.

Anyway, I've taken advantage of the empty house to do some experimental cooking. Actually, all my cooking is experimental; I am a terrible cook who refuses to use recipes and tends to just chuck stuff in a saucepan in the vague hope it'll taste like something...and it rarely does.

Anyway, I've got some bourbon balls fixing in the freezer (very loosely based off this recipe, except with butter icing instead of creme cheese and bourbons instead of oreos) which I'm quite looking forward to trying, but I also cooked up some spiced cranberry cider based very vaguely on this.

Ladies and gentlemen, the biggest mug of all time. Literally my entire saucepan-ful fit in one mug, give or take.

Put simply, the recipe was a bit of a flop. My haphazard "throw some ground cinammon in" turned into "LET'S MAKE A CINAMMON MOUNTAIN" so I had to add a shit-ton of sugar to balance it out. My teeth are genuinely aching right now from the sugar OD. And it was still too cinammon-y. So below is the recipe, adjusted to be less kill-you-with-cavities and more delicious wintertime treat.

Ingredients

• 1 x 440ml can of cider. I used Strongbow but I think Blackthorn or Bulmers or Brothers or something might be nicer.
• 350ml cranberry juice. 
• 3 or 4 tablespoons granulated sugar.
• Tablespoon ground cinammon (AT THE MAXIMUM) 

Things you'll also need

• A reasonably large saucepan
• Some form of stirring implement
• A hob
• Enough years under your belt to legally drink teh alchoholzz
• A blanket, a dog, and some suitably bad sitcom repeats.

The Method

Stick it all in the saucepan. Warm it up. Stir until hot. Add less or more sugar until it tastes about right. Switch on the TV. Enjoy.

Conclusion

It's warm, it's sweet, it's slightly alcoholic (you can barely taste the cider, to be honest.)
If I can get the recipe right I'll definitely be trying this again!

Emma x