A Pudding for All Seasons (and tastebuds)
Perhaps some of the best betting plum puddings around are made by local business, Pud For All Seasons. They are a stalwart business from Castlemaine and are known for their award-winning quality puddings – so much so, that they make their beautiful puddings all year round. We have again teamed up with them this Christmas and offer a good range of their puddings in different sizes alongside their incredibly indulgent sauces. Their puddings are all handmade and their range includes traditional Christmas puddings as well as more contemporary recipes for those who don’t like “squishy fruit”.
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Champagne Pudding
When you make your puddings with a healthy dash of real French Champagne you want to let everyone know. And that is why Puddings on the Ritz from Melbourne call their superbly packaged plum puddings Champagne Puddings. Dense, lightly spiced, fruity and made with top quality dried vine fruit and real plums this is a superb pudding that ideal for a gift, hamper or to steam up on the big day to serve 4 generously.
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Four Paws Christmas
We are dog people at Blakes. We love our pets. We love spending time with them and looking after them. When it comes to spoiling them, it usually is with a bone. But we reckon that once a year, you can splurge on specially-made dog treats. Made from dog-friendly chocolate-free ingredients, our range of dog Christmas gifts from Pooch Treats are perfect for spoiling your dog and getting them into the party spirit when everyone comes together to celebrate the festive season. Available in ‘ice cream cone’ and ‘lolly pop’ shapes.
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Duncan’s of Deeside Shortbread
Up in the Highlands of Scotland, in Cairn O’Mount in Royal Deeside, Duncan’s of Deeside baked their first shortbread three generations ago. The family continue that tradition of baking beautifully short biscuits that crumble when broken but are as smooth as silk when eaten. In many households, shortbreads are a Christmas tradition and these raspberry and white chocolate Scottish shortbread are as good with a good cup of tea as they are with a neat dram of whisky.
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Christmas Panforte
In Sienna, Italy, they celebrate Christmas by sharing a rich flat cake of nuts and fruit. Importer Simon Johnson has sourced a beautiful little 100g panforte to celebrate the season made with with almonds, hazelnuts, candied fruits, wafer, sweetened with natural honey and slathered in dark chocolate. Perfect as a gift, for a hamper or to share with visitors during the festive season this Sienese panforte is perfect with coffee or a glass of Victorian fortified wine such as a muscat or tokay.
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A Very Hot Christmas
Do you like it hot? Do you like it smooth? Do you like it French or good old English style? You can’t have a Christmas table without good mustard. And we have loads.
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Fiasconaro Panettone Tradizionale
Be like the Italians and start Christmas morning with a little glass of Moscato or Prosecco and a slice of real Italian panettone. Made with real preserved vine fruit, fresh candied orange and citrus rind and then hand wrapped in Italy, our Fiasconaro Panettone Tradizionale is just one of the several authentic panettone we bring in every year for Christmas.
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Springmount Black Garlic
They grow great garlic out Springmount way, between Daylesford and Creswick, and the team at Springmount Fine Foods know how to turn it into delicious black garlic. It is a slow process of heat and humidity that transforms garlic into a dark, sweet and delicious product perfect to add to dishes for complexity and flavour.
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Billson's Refreshing Vodka RTD's.
With great packaging and design, their products have a bright young feel and their range of ready to drink products are the real deal. We love their vodka, made with the same spring water, flavoured with pine and lime. Other flavours in the range include Banoffee, Watermelon and Zesty Lemon. Perfect for parties, picnics or post pickup chat with friends.
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Bottarga Australia - Bottarga Di Muggine
If you love classic Italian pasta dishes you will love Bottarga Australia’s dried, grated bottarga. It is great sprinkled over pasta to give a deep, delicious slightly seafood flavour. A little goes a long, long way and releases its aroma and flavour when warmed. It is not an ingredient to cook with as it destroys its delicate nature.
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Rolada Pear & Hazelnut
It’s rich, fruity, nutty, delicious and good for you. Rolada is a range of what could be called sweetmeats in old-fashioned parlance - but it is really just logs of dried fruit and nuts. Slice off a piece and pack it in a lunchbox for a snack. Put some fine slices on a cheeseboard where it is a dead-set match for blue cheese.
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Chef Luca Ciano - Pumpkin & Amaretti Sauce
This unique combination is Chef Luca Ciano’s take on the famous Italian Pumpkin ravioli. The filling is turned into a flavoursome pasta sauce combo. The sweetness of the pumpkin matches perfectly with the subtle, nutty flavour of the Amaretti. Italian Grana Padano cheese is then added.
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Cuca Spanish Sardines
Cuca sardines can be eaten straight from the can or put on hot sourdough toast and seasoned with sea salt. They are rich tasting, have a great texture and are incredibly delicious with an ice-cold beer, glass of Alberino white wine or even a Spanish sherry or vermouth.
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Blue Pyrenees Cuvée Riche. Celebrate with Sweet Decadence.
Blue Pyrenees Cuvee Riche is a fine salmon pink sparkling with fine bead and an aromas of red apples, cherry and brioche. In the mouth it is delicate and mousse-like with strawberries and cream flavours. It is sweeter than the bone dry Champagnes and can be served as a dessert wine.
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Mimi's Laphet
Wow! This is new. This is good. This is healthy. This is delicious. It is a salad dressing made from fermented tea leaves from Burma. The sauce is made here in Victoria in the Yarra Valley from fermented tea leaves, sesame, soy sauce and a load of other delicious natural ingredients. It is thick, tangy, smooth, clean tasting, not at all sweet and incredibly mouth filling and delicious.
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Tiny Ice Creams Treats - Port Melbourne Paletas
These small little ice creams are sensational. Covered with real dark chocolate that gives a delicious ‘crack’ when bitten into, it reveals an interior of salted caramel dulce de leche ice cream with almond praline and a sprinkle of Murray River salt flakes. You can engulf them in a few bites or take your time to enjoy these Port Melbourne Paletas.
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Spanish Paprika
Repeat after me. “Spanish food is not spicy!” As a rule, Spaniards hate hot food (except for padron peppers). But they love spice and fragrance. Cinnamon, lemon rind, bay leaves and Pimenton or Spanish Paprika - this is powdered dried red peppers that are like aromatic capsicums. The red powder, which is also called Spanish paprika, yields a delicious back note to Spanish dishes like stewed vegetables, sausages and, even eggs fried in olive oil and served with chips.
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Salt Kitchen - Perfect Bacon for a "Bacon Sarnie"
For a great bacon sarnie you need great bacon and we reckon Salt Kitchen bacon is some of the best we’ve seen. It is made from older larger sows grown for this Ballarat charcutier and smallgoods maker by Western Plains Pork.
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Fancy Hanks Chicken Salt
If you loved the way the Fancy Hanks team in Bourke Street Melbourne, perfected the American barbeque and loved the way the food is perfectly seasoned, then you will love their chicken salt. Based on their lip-smackingly good recipes, this chicken salt is: 1) salty, 2) extremely delicious in a sexy umami way, and 3) packaged in a super cool yellow tin.
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Quillo Jamon Flavoured Crisps
These are probably the best potato crisps on the market anywhere in the world at present. They are from Spain and the brand is called Quillo (pronounce Key–Oh) and the flavours in the range include such truly Spanish flavours as a fried egg.
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Oakwood Smokehouse Pate
God, we love pâté! This is some of the best we’ve had. Made with loads of brandy and the aromatic rind of orange this is just sensational. Spread on crusty bread or crackers and enjoy with pinot noir, aged Riesling, or even some shiraz from Passing Clouds.
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Perhaps the World’s Finest Maple Syrup
If you have never had single variety, single estate organic Canadian maple syrup then spoil yourself with what we consider to be extraordinary syrup from a single farm in Quebec called Escuminac, named after the Canadian region, where syrup maker Martin Malenfant founded the business in 1987.
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Peddling Christmas
These are light but somehow rich, delicious little two bite mince tarts from one of our favourite pastry chefs, Chris Edwards from Peddling Pastries in Castlemaine. He supplies us daily with fresh pastries that many enjoy with a cup of coffee.
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Perfect Panettone
Perfect with prosecco on Christmas morning or gently grilled over the following days, we have a range of panettone to celebrate. We also have a great recipe to use leftover panettone to create the most delicious bread and butter pudding.
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Have a Very Chocolate Christmas
A drinking chocolate for every day of the week, plus some more for later on. This box of nine drinking chocolates, and one chai, come from Ballarat’s own Grounded Pleasures (made one of the nicest gentlemen we know) is a great gift for choc lovers.
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Get Into the Christmas Spirit(s)
We make a lot of good spirits in this region. It could be the water. It could be the committed artisans who live in this rich landscape. It could be that we have the perfect climate for enjoying a dirty martini, a Moscow mule or just a gin and tonic made in a tall glass with fresh lemon and loads of ice.
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Designer Pasta
The pasta is so bloody good – slowly dried bronze die extruded fine spaghetti made from Italian wheat - that it makes unwrapping these beautiful packs worth it. They make brilliant gifts and even better pasta!
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Buon Natalie a Te!
The Italians are so good at doing Christmas. They have great traditions in making sweets and baking beautiful things that last throughout the Christmas season.
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Gingerbread House Keeping
The walls, roof, icing and all the decorations have been included for your own fantasy gingerbread house. Hand baked in England this DIY gingerbread house comes in an attractive box with all the walls, roof, chimney, icing mix and icing stars. All it needs is an egg to hold the icing together. It is so cute and so much fun to build – great for school holidays.
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Beautiful Nougat
Bramble and Hedge Nougat are works of art as well as being exquisitely made nougat.
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Start Me Up Bloody Mary
There are some good people we know who swear by a good Bloody Mary to start the big days during the festive season. It’s basically a cold spicy tomato soup with a good slug of vodka. Our fave is Frankie’s Classic Bloody Mary Cocktail Mixer.
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A Central Victorian Wine Christmas
Barfold Estate, Passing Clouds and Sutton Grange are all superb local Central Victorian wines that are always on our tables at Christmas.
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