Enjoy mulled wine and hot chocolate in your garden cabin
When creating a Christmas market atmosphere at home, Christmas Roses are of course a must, no matter what arrangement you go for. Decorating the garden in the spirit of Christmas is all the more important this year after the extraordinarily challenging times we have had.
Decorate your garden cabin with holiday lights, fir sprigs, candle arrangements and Christmas bulbs to turn it into a Christmas market stall – a cosy hangout to enjoy the season’s spirit in the company of your nearest and dearest. Make use of the home advantage to decorate the cabin with things you find around the garden in the autumn. Fir cones, coloured leaves, moss, cut conifer twigs or brushwood are all perfect materials for table decorations and other decorative arrangements. Not, of course, to forget Christmas Roses. Get your snowy white winter bloomers "on stage" in pots or planters to make them the stars in a very special scenery design. No mulled wine stall at a German market will ever be as freshly decorated as yours with your very own Christmas Rose flowers.
No cabin, no worries: you can enjoy your own home-made Christmas market even if you don't have a garden cabin. Just take out your garden furniture on a beautiful clear winter day. Soft and cuddly sheepskin or blankets on a wooden bench or deckchair keep you nice and warm when temperatures are frosty, and a festive Christmas Rose arrangement with holiday lights or candles placed on a table or in a planter creates a charming Christmas market atmosphere. And that beautiful scene you create will keep a long time, as white flowered Christmas Roses withstand frost and cold spells extremely well.
Classic mulled wine recipe
1 litre red wine; 50 ml amaretto; 2 oranges, sliced; 2 oranges, pressed; 7 cloves; 2 cinnamon sticks; 3 star anises; cardamom; 50 g rock sugar
Here's how to make it: pour red wine and amaretto into a sauce pan. Slice the oranges and add to the mixture together with sugar, orange juice, cinnamon sticks, cloves, anises and cardamom. Heat until just before boiling, cover and leave to simmer for at least an hour.
Tip: Never allow mulled wine to boil! The alcohol would evaporate and the spices would turn bitter.
Recipe for Christmas hot chocolate
150 g dark chocolate; 50 g milk chocolate, finely chopped; 450 ml whole milk; 1 cinnamon stick; 5 cardamom pods; 100 g whipping cream; 1 sachet vanilla sugar. Chocolate shavings, mini marshmallows, ground cinnamon for decoration
Here's how to make it: gently heat the milk while stirring in a pan together with the chopped chocolate until the chocolate has completely dissolved. Add cinnamon stick and cardamom pods and keep simmering for about five minutes. Keep well stirred. In the meantime, whip the cream until stiff, gradually adding the vanilla sugar. Strain the hot chocolate into cups, top with whipped cream using a spoon or piping bag and decorate with chocolate shavings, spices, mini marshmallows and a pinch of ground cinnamon.
