Win a luxury Cornish hamper

We’ve got a tasty Christmas treat for you: the chance to win a Cornish hamper worth £74.50 and stuffed with high-quality produce from Eden’s home county.

Delicious, locally sourced food and drink

Cornwall is renowned for its excellent food and drink, and this hamper showcases some of the best, including hand-harvested Cornish seasalt from the Lizard Peninsula on the south coast, and Tregothnan afternoon tea, the only tea grown in England.

Here’s the full list of hamper contents:

• Eden ground El Salvador coffee (227g)
• Eden three-fruit marmalade
• Tregothnan Estate afternoon tea (10 teabags)
• Eden all butter shortbread biscuits (250g)
• Eden choc chip shortbread biscuits (250g)
• Eden organic clotted cream fudge (400g)
• Cornish sea salt pouch (125g)
• Eden chocolate bar 100g
• Eden kiln-roasted nuts (650g)
• Apple juice (750ml)

The unique gift hampers that contain these goodies are made to a high quality from sustainable wood, which means you can use them again and again throughout the year for picnics and days out.

How to enter

All you have to do to enter our free prize draw is visit our website and fill in the online form. The closing date is 31 December 2011.

If you’re not feeling lucky, or want to get your hands on one before Christmas itself, the hamper is one of a range available in the online Eden webshop – and if you place an order by 21 December 2011, you’ll receive your hamper in time for Christmas!

Prize draw terms and conditions

• Entry is free. One entry per household. Automated entries will not be accepted.
• The first name drawn at random after the closing date will receive the prize as detailed above.
• The prize is non-refundable, non-transferable and subject to availability. No alternative prize will be offered and there is no cash alternative.
• The draw is not open to employees of The Eden Project, their families, its agents or anyone professionally connected with the prize draw.
• All entries must be received by midnight on 31 December 2011. The winner will be notified by email after the closing date.
• By entering this competition you are giving the Eden Project permission to contact you at a future date. You can subscribe from this service at any time.
• Prize draw open to all UK residents. Entrants must be over 16 years of age.

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A Time of Gifts Calendar, Food, Shop

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A Time of Gifts, competition, drink, Food

Beautiful Cornish handmade chocolates

Christmas is the time to indulge in your sweet tooth. At Eden we’ve got the most decadent, handmade chocolates made here in Cornwall to share with friends and family… or to enjoy all to yourself.

Simply add a Bond film, hot mulled cider and a sleepy warm cat for the perfect cosy Christmas.

It wasn’t easy to decide, but here are our top 10 chocolates:

  1. Assorted handmade chocolates – box of 12

Can’t decide which of our melt in the mouth chocolates to choose from? Then try them all. This collection contains the award winning raspberry truffle, praline log and Cornish sea salt caramel. A winner for all the family.

2. Christmas truffles – box of 24 

Get into the spirit with chocolates that encapsulate the festive season in one bite. How about Christmas pudding flavour, almond liquor, rose and even port and Cornish blue cheese?

3. Dark Chocolate Buttons

These delicious Montezuma treats are bite sized buttons of happiness. Made with the finest organic ingredients and stored in a reusable glass Kilner jar, these nibbles make a lovely gift this Christmas.

4.Cornish sea salt caramel truffles – box of seven

A dark chocolate shell filled with salted caramel. These oozing centred chocolates contain sea salt from the most southerly point of Cornwall to help bring out the intense caramel flavour.

5. Raspberry truffles – box of 14

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without liquor chocolates. These treats contain mouth-watering fresh raspberry puree, raspberry liquor and a hint of honey all encased in a milk chocolate shell.

6. Orange Chocolate

Chocolate and orange – a match made in heaven. Try this bar, made in Cornwall with Sicilian oranges. An affordable stocking filler for the chocoholic in your life.

7. Cornish honey and cinnamon truffles – box of 24

A milk chocolate shell containing wildflower honey ganache, fresh Cornish cream all lightly spiced with cinnamon. A dreamy combination handmade right here in Cornwall.

8. Dark truffles – box of 12

These fresh, intensely dark chocolate are made with Cornish cream, 73%Venezuelan chocolate and butter. Share with best friends and family to round off the perfect meal.

9. Chocolate Chip Shortbread Tube

 Dunk these Cornish beauties in your tea after a brisk walk on a Sunday for traditional British afternoon. This all butter shortbread contains Cornish clotted cream for a beautifully rich flavour.

10. Chocolate indulgence hamper

This gorgeous hamper contains everything you’ll need to satisfy a sweet tooth, from chunky chocolate brazil nuts to Divine drinking chocolate for those cold winter nights. The fairly traded chocolate comes in a sustainable wicker hamper, which is a beautiful gift in itself.

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Cornwall, Food, Gift guides, Shop

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chocolate gift, Cornish chocolate, handmade chocolate, luxury chocolate, organic chocolate

Make a Christmas robin from a sock

Try your hand at making one of these delightful little robins out of an old pair of socks and some scrap material. It makes a great homemade Christmas gift, and is a nice craft activity for kids.

Step 1

You will need a sock (with a coloured heal), thread, stuffing (scraps of materials, or dried beans), felt, two buttons, wire, scissors and a needle.

Step 2

Cut your sock into three sections for the wings, body and head of your robin.

Step 3

Cut the wing section into two equal pieces and then cut a wing shape out of each.

Step 4

Take your body and head sections and stuff them with scraps of material, or dried beans tied inside a bag, so they are nice and plump.

Step 5

Pin the head to the body in place ready to be stitched. Ruffle the other end of the body section into a tail shape and use a pin to hold it together.

Step 6

Stitch the head to the body and stitch the tail up. You can see the sock robin taking shape now!

Step 7

Position your wing shapes on the sides of the body and place a small amount of stuffing under them. Ruffle the bottom end of each wing to make a feather effect and use a pin to hold it in place.

Step 8

Sew the wings onto the body.

Step 9

Cut out and stitch together a small cone shape from your felt, place some stuffing inside and sew the base of the cone to the front of the head.

Step 10

Use a couple of buttons for the eyes and sew them onto the side of the head. Then you could use some wire bent into shape for some feet.

Now you just need to find your sock robin a home.

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• A Time of Gifts Calendar

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Art, children, Christmas, gifts, Inspiration, kids, Play

A mince pie recipe from Eden’s chefs

Try this mince pie recipe from Eden’s chefs; they’re filled with a delicious spiced apple mincemeat. Or come and try them in our Bakery this month!

The amounts below make about 18 mince pies, depending on the size of your pastry cutter. The mincemeat ingredients should make a half pound jar (225g) and you can store it for later if you have any left overs.

Spiced apple mincemeat

Ingredients

• 125g cooking apples, peeled, cored and finely diced
• 225g dried mixed fruit peel
• 50g dark muscovado sugar
• 40g vegetarian suet
• 25g whole blanched almonds, chopped
• Handful of dried apricots, coarsely chopped
• Zest and juice of half an orange
• Zest and juice of half an orange
• Pinch of ground cinnamon
• Pinch of grated nutmeg
• Pinch of ground ginger
• 30ml brandy

Method

1. Put the apples, apricots, dried fruit peel, almonds, suet and sugar into a large non-metallic bowl and mix together until thoroughly combined.
2. Add the orange and lemon rind and juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and brandy and mix well.
3. If possible, leave to stand in a cool area and sir occasionally. The earlier you can make your mincemeat the better, as it improves with age. Four weeks beforehand is ideal. If not, don’t worry!

Here’s how to store your mincemeat, if you’d like to:

1. Spoon the mincemeat into cool sterilised jars, pressing down well and ensuring no air bubbles are trapped.
2. Cover and seal.
3. Store in a cool, dark place.

Shortcrust pastry

Ingredients

• 1lb / 450g flour, sieved
• 10 oz / 300g butter
• 5 oz / 150g sugar
• 1 egg, beaten

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190C / 365F / gas mark 5.
2. Mix all the ingredients together to form a smooth paste.
3. On a floured surface, roll the pastry thinly (to ½cm / ¼inch depth), then use two different-sized pastry cutters to stamp out enough pie bases and tops to fill your dimpled oven tray.
4. Place the bases on the tray and fill each 2/3 full with mincemeat.
5. Dampen the edges of the pie bases with a little cold water and press the lids on.
6. Bake in oven for 20–25 minutes until golden brown.
7. When cooked, sprinkle them with icing sugar and enjoy them warm.

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A Time of Gifts Calendar, Food

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A Time of Gifts, Christmas, Food

Eden’s winter wonderland: an audio slideshow

Sit back with a hot drink and enjoy the magical pictures of the Eden Project in the winter in the audio slideshow below. Don’t forget to turn your speakers on or plug in some headphones, or you’ll miss out on the music.

Whereas the snowy pictures at the beginning were taken in the harsh winters over the past few years, the photos of our Time of Gifts celebrations with lantern parades and choirs later in the slideshow were taken last weekend. Although it hasn’t snowed yet this year at Eden…you never know!

If you’ve got some great pictures of Eden in the winter, why not share them on our Facebook Wall or via Twitter?

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A Time of Gifts Calendar, Experience

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A Time of Gifts, Christmas, Fun, snow, weather, winter

Enter our competition to win a cuddly toy

Today’s treat for our friends is the chance to win a gorgeous cuddly toy, made from super-soft bamboo fibre.

These baby teddy bears and puppies are filled with recycled materials too, so they’re not only lovely to cuddle but great for the environment.

Bamboo is such a green material because it’s fast-growing and thrives naturally without pesticides or fertilisers, absorbing greenhouse gases as it grows.

We’ve got 10 of these to give away to the lucky people whose names are drawn out of a hat at the end of the year.

How to enter
Simply enter your details on our competition form. You can read the small print about it all below. Good luck!

• Entry is free. One entry per household. Automated entries will not be accepted.
• The first name drawn at random after the closing date will receive the prize as detailed above.
• The prize is non-refundable, non-transferrable and subject to availability. No alternative prize will be offered and there is no cash alternative.
• The draw is not open to employees of The Eden Project, their families, its agents or anyone professionally connected with the prize draw.
• All entries must be received by midnight on 31 December 2011. The winner will be notified by email after the closing date.
• By entering this competition you are giving the Eden Project permission to contact you at a future date. You can subscribe from this service at any time.
• Prize draw open to all UK residents. Entrants must be over 16 years of age.

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• A Time of Gifts Calendar

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A Time of Gifts, children, Christmas, Play, Sustainability

Delicious Christmas Stollen cake recipe

Impress your friends this Christmas with homemade stollen, that delicious traditional German loaf full of spices and marzipan. Today, our Eden chefs share the secret recipe behind the stollen cake served in our own Bakery.

Ingredients (makes two loaves)

For the loaf:

• 100g butter, cooled but still soft
• 500g plain flour
• 40g fresh yeast
• 40g sugar
• 225ml milk, warmed
• 1 large egg, beaten
• salt

For the filling:

• 200g marzipan
• 110g sultanas
• 100g mixed peel
• 50g flaked almonds
• 50g undyed glacé cherries
• 6 green cardamoms
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the glaze:

• 50g butter
• icing sugar

Method

1. Melt the butter in a small pan, then leave to cool down.
2. Sieve the flour into a large mixing bowl. Crumble in the yeast, then stir in the milk, sugar, salt, butter and the beaten egg. Mix thoroughly; the dough should be soft, shiny and rather sticky.
3. Turn out on to a lightly floured board. As you knead, the dough will become less and less sticky and more like a bread dough, though it will be heavier because of the butter and egg. When the dough is soft, elastic and no longer sticking to the board, scoop it up and put it into a floured bowl. Set aside, covered with a clean tea towel for a good hour.
4. Break the cardamom pods open and take out their black seeds. Crush the seeds to a coarse powder using a pestle and mortar or a spice mill.
5. Mix these in a bowl with the cherries, mixed peel, sultanas, cinnamon and flaked almonds.
6. Dust your work surface with flour and tip your risen dough on to it. Cut the dough in half, then flatten each piece out into a rectangle about 22cm x 16cm.
7. Cover each with half of the fruit filling, then break off pieces of marzipan and scatter them on top.
8. Place the longest side of each dough in front of you and roll each over to form loose loaf shapes.
9. Lift on to a floured baking sheet, cover with a towel and return to a warm place to prove for a further hour and a half.
10. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4.
11. Place the loaves in the hot oven and bake for about 35–40 minutes until pale gold.
12. Melt the butter for the glaze and brush over the loaves. Cool on a wire rack, then dust generously with icing sugar.

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A Time of Gifts Calendar, Food

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Our Christmas gift to you: a discount and a £100 voucher for Eden’s online shop

As it’s nearly Christmas we thought we’d offer our friends a nice little treat: a 15% discount in the Eden Project online. Plus, for one lucky person we’ve got a fabulous £100 voucher for the online shop to give away this month!

We’ve handpicked a beautiful range of gifts for our shop, including everything from high-quality plants and hand-tied bouquets to great food and brilliant accessories for the home. We also stock great energy-saving gadgets, ethical cosmetics, gardening equipment and award-winning toys for kids.

To start enjoying a 15% discount on the Eden online shop, valid from now until 12 noon tomorrow (Thursday 8 December 2011) simply enter the code happyxmas when you reach the checkout stage.

To be in with a chance of winning the £100 voucher, valid for 12 months in our online shop, simply enter your details on our competition form. You can read the small print about it all below.

Good luck and happy Christmas shopping!

Prize draw terms and conditions

• Entry is free. One entry per household. Automated entries will not be accepted.
• The first name drawn at random after the closing date will receive the prize as detailed above.
• The prize is non-refundable, non-transferrable and subject to availability. No alternative prize will be offered and there is no cash alternative.
• The draw is not open to employees of The Eden Project, their families, its agents or anyone professionally connected with the prize draw.
• All entries must be received by midnight on 31 December 2011. The winner will be notified by email after the closing date.
• By entering this competition you are giving the Eden Project permission to contact you at a future date. You can subscribe from this service at any time.
• Prize draw open to all UK residents. Entrants must be over 16 years of age.

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• A Time of Gifts Calendar

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A Time of Gifts, Christmas, gifts, shop

How to make gingerbread Christmas decorations

Don’t you just love Christmas decorations you can eat? Use this simple gingerbread recipe to make decorative biscuits to hang on your tree – or if you have any left, wrap them up in gift bags and offer them as festive treats to friends.

Ingredients (for 36 gingerbread biscuits)

• 1.5kg flour
• 525g dark brown sugar
• 300g butter
• 160g golden syrup
• 3 eggs
• 2 heaped tablespoons ground ginger

Technique

1. Preheat the oven to 190C / 375F / gas mark 5.
2. Mix all of the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, ginger) together in a large bowl, rubbing the butter in with your fingers.
3. Add the eggs and syrup and mix until they’re well combined and form a smooth paste.
4. On a lightly flour-covered surface, roll out the dough to 0.5cm / ¼inch thickness. Then cut into shapes using cookie cutters – or, using a sharp knife, draw and cut your own.
5. If you’d like to hang them as decorations when finished, make a hole in the top of each with the end of a pencil or a skewer.
6. Place on a flat baking tray, leaving a space between them, and bake for 12– 15 minutes until golden brown.
7. If you want, try decorating them in different ways, dipping them in melted chocolate, covering them in sprinkles or dusting them in icing sugar.
8. Add a piece of thread through the ready-made hole of any gingerbread biscuits that you’d like to hang up.

If you’re visiting Eden between now and 18 December 2011, pop into our Hive of Activity, where we’re running craft sessions, including gingerbread making. Throughout the month on our online Advent calendar, we’ll be bringing you more ideas and tips on preparing for Christmas, plus the chance to win prizes.

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• A Time of Gifts Calendar

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children, Christmas, Food, kids

How to make an origami gift box

Follow these simple instructions on how to make an origami box, and with a bit of clever paper folding you’ve got yourself a fantastic Christmas gift box.

These cute little things look great when made with brightly coloured or patterned card, old Christmas cards or even used gift bags.

You can experiment with different sized paper to create small or large boxes, to fit your present.

Start with two square pieces of card, and trim one so that its sides are 1cm shorter than the other (figure 1).

The larger piece of card will form the lid of your box, fitting snugly snugly over the base, which will be made out of your smaller piece of card.

To make the lid, take the larger piece of card and find its centre point. You can do this by drawing straight lines from corner to corner using a pencil and ruler.

Place your card in front of you at an angle, so it looks like a diamond. Fold the bottom tip in to the centre point (figure 2).

You then want to fold the bottom quarter in half again so that the flat edge runs along the horizontal centre line (figure 3). Unfold and repeat this again for every side.

With all sides unfolded, you’ll see you card is now criss-crossed with folds – with a clear square emerging around the centre point.  Mark the four corners of this square with dots so that you can see them clearly (figure 4). The area between these dots is how big your final lid will be.

With the card placed in a diamond shape in front of you again, try to make out the vertical, parallel lines that run through your dots. Using scissors, make cuts along these lines from the outside edges inwards. Make sure that you stop at the dots you marked and don’t cut into the centre square (figure 5).

You should make four cuts – and you can see if you’ve done it right by tucking in the top and bottom corners and making it look like a double-ended arrow (figure 6).

Placing your card flat in front of you as a diamond again, fold the right and left points back into the centre point, then fold them in half again (as you did in figure 3). Lift up this last fold and you can see the first two sides of your lid emerge.

You should now have two flaps left on either side of your lid (figure 7). Bring these up and over the two sides you’ve just made (figure 8). All four of your tips should fit snugly together at the centre point, now the middle of your lid.

Repeat these steps on your second piece of card to create the base of your box (figure 9). The larger lid should fit perfectly over the smaller base, giving you a lovely little giftbox (figure 10).

If you’re visiting Eden between now and 18 December 2011, pop into our Hive of Activity, where we’re running free craft sessions. Throughout the month on our online Advent calendar, we’ll be bringing you more ideas and tips on preparing for Christmas, plus the chance to win prizes.

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• A Time of Gifts Calendar

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A Time of Gifts, Christmas, gifts, Inspiration