December Photo Challenge 2018 – Day Twelve

Day Twelve: For today’s photo prompt, that of comfort in a mug, I decided to twist the meaning and plumped for comfort in a glass. I opted to make mulled wine and followed the recipe from Jamie Oliver. Below find the ingredients and method for one bottle of wine.

Mulled Wine

Spiced and Warming Mulled Wine – Jamie Oliver

Ingredients

• 1 clementines
• 1/2 lemon
• 1/2 lime
• 100 g caster sugar
• 3 whole cloves
• 1/2 cinnamon stick
• 2 fresh bay leaves
• 1 whole nutmeg , for grating (1/3 tea spoon of ground)
• 1/2 vanilla pod
• 1 bottle red wine
• 1 star anise

Method

1. Peel large sections of peel from the clementines, lemon and lime using a speed-peeler.
2. Put the sugar in a large saucepan over a medium heat, add the pieces of peel and squeeze in the clementine juice.
3. Add the cloves, cinnamon stick, bay leaves and about 10 to 12 gratings of nutmeg. Halve the vanilla pod length ways and add to the pan, then stir in just enough red wine to cover the sugar.
4. Let this simmer until the sugar has completely dissolved into the red wine, then bring to the boil. Keep on a rolling boil for about 4 to 5 minutes, or until you’ve got a beautiful thick syrup. The reason I’m doing this first is to create a wonderful flavour base by really getting the sugar and spices to infuse and blend well with the wine. It’s important to make a syrup base first because it needs to be quite hot, and if you do this with both bottles of wine in there you’ll burn off the alcohol.
5. When your syrup is ready, turn the heat down to low and add your star anise and the rest of the wine. Gently heat the wine and after around 5 minutes, when it’s warm and delicious, ladle it into heatproof glasses and serve.

It made for a spicy warming drink, but neither David nor my mum liked it. Perhaps I should just keep to red wine in future?

Have you tried making mulled wine?

Thanks for stopping by,

Christine x