Cinnamon Hearts

100g butter
100g caster sugar
1 large egg
250g plain flour
1tsp cinnamon

Cream together butter and sugar, add flour,egg and spice. Mix to a dough. Chill dough for approx 1 hour. Roll out dough on a floured surface to approx 1/2cm thick. Cut out heart shapes. Bake for 10 minutes Gas 4, cooling on a wire rack when cooked.

Decorate with icing if desired.

All Purpose Spice Rub

1/3 cup coarse salt
1/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/4 cup paprika
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
2 tablespoons dried oregano
2 tablespoons dried thyme leaves
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper (optional)

In a small bowl, combine all the ingredients, using your hands to break up the sugar. Store in an airtight container, away from heat and light, up to 6 months.

Sloe Gin

1 lb. (450 g) sloes
3 cups (710 ml) gin or vodka
1 1/2 cup (350 g) sugar


Wash and dry the fruit, remove all stems, and freeze the sloes for at least a couple of days (not necessary if they are picked after the first frost). Place the fruit in a suitable container, add gin or vodka, and shake twice a week for 4-8 weeks. Transfer most of the liquid to a bottle. Add the sugar to the remaining sloes. Shake twice a day until all sugar has dissolved; this may take up to two weeks. Mix this sweet syrup with the first unsweetened liquid. After three months strain the liqueur thru a muslin cloth. Add some more sugar if necessary. The liqueur should mellow for 6 months before used.

As an alternative you can mix the sloes, gin/vodka and sugar at the same time, but then use slightly less sugar. If preparing the sloe gin/liqueur this way you will also get a delicious flavor, however, the total volume of liqueur will be less because more liquid will remain within the fruit.

Sloes are the fruit of blackthorn and are actually a wild type of plums. The flavor of the fruit is bitter, so the small plums are not suitable for eating. However, the effect of frost makes them milder. The bitter flavor is lost when making liqueurs.