Christmas Wreath

In a mixer blend the butter and sugar. Slowly add eggs, followed by almond flour. Mix well. Separately heat cream, vanilla and salt to 35-40C. Add to the melted chocolate(at 35C). Emulsify like a ganache. Add ganache to butter/sugar mixture. Fold in the sieved dry ingredients by hand. Stir through the chocolate callets, zest and spices and then pour the mix into tins or moulds. Bake 160c for 30-35 minutes. Pour 500g of mix per cake.

Cream the butter and sugar together. Slowly add the eggs. Add the dry ingredients and mix, then add cream and bring to a dough. Roll out to half cm thickness and using snowflake cutters cut out biscuits and place onto a lined baking tray. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 170c for 10 minutes. Cool completely before decorating. To decorate pipe dark chocolate snowflake shapes on top of each biscuit.

Bring the cream and glucose to the boil. Pour over the chocolate. Mix well to a smooth ganache and then add in the butter. Mix well and allow to cool to 35c before glazing the cake.

Glazing - Place the cake on a wire rack over a tray. Pour the ganache slowly over the cake to get a smooth even coverage all over. Remove the cake from the wire rack and place onto a serving plate or stand. Decorate with shortbread stars. Any left over ganache from glazing can be cooled and used to pipe extra decorative features or be used in other applications.