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This week marks the arrival of the Bath Christmas Market to town. It’s one of the highlights of the festive season for anyone who lives here, and it means that my evenings will be spent meandering between the cute little wooden huts, eating mince pies and drinking hot chocolate. This might be the last Christmas we spend living in the city (touch all the wood), so we’re definitely planning on making the most of it.
Another staple of the Christmas Market is copious amounts of Mulled Wine that Katie and our friend Lexie consume. Okay, so maybe ‘copious’ is pushing things a little far, but it definitely doesn’t take much to get Katie more than a little tipsy these days ? But I’m a non-drinker, so I miss out on all the mulled fun.
Until now.
Let me introduce you to the answer to all you teetotallers’ fears – Mulled Winter Punch:
Yep, it’s got all the characteristics of a glass of mulled wine, without the hangover. Instead of wine, we’re going to be mulling apple and cranberry juices, which are pretty much the most festive of all the juices, right? The rest of the ingredients are your standard mulling spices – ginger, cloves, cinnamon, and slices of fresh orange.
I waaaaaay over ordered on the ginger front. The perils of online grocery shopping. Oh well, I’ll just have to mull myself about a hundred more mugs of this stuff before the festive season is out.
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This mulled winter punch really couldn’t be any easier to make – throw all the ingredients into a saucepan, bring to the boil, and then simmer for about ten minutes. Job done. Make your life easier and strain the punch through a sieve, rather than trying to ladle around the spices – those pesky cloves will get everywhere!
By the way – this year’s Christmas theme in our house is gold and white, hence the gold tinsel adorning these photos. I photographed this punch back in October, when we had yet to go and collect our Christmas decorations from my parents’ attic, so I popped out to Primark and picked up a few new additions to help things along until the good stuff gets here. Bring on the Christmas goat.
I’m a little bit in love with the glass mugs, and I bet you guys are too. I bought them especially for the Toblerone Hot Chocolate recipe I shared with you last week, and I couldn’t help but bust them out again for this punch. If you want to get hold of some, then these are the ones
that I own. They aren’t too big, they aren’t too small. Just right.
- 500ml (2 cups) cloudy apple juice
- 250ml (1 cup) cranberry juice
- ½ large orange, sliced
- 3 small cinnamon sticks
- 15g (about size of your thumb) root ginger, cut into four pieces
- 10 whole cloves
- 50g to 100g (¼ to ½ cup) light brown sugar (optional) - SEE NOTES
- Place all the ingredients into a saucepan, and bring to the boil on a medium heat. Once boiling, reduce the heat down to medium-low, and leave to simmer for ten minutes or so.
- Strain the punch through a fine sieve to remove all the spices, and then serve immediately in mugs.
- Depending on what type of apple and cranberry juices you use, you may need to add more or less sugar than the recipe states. I used Copella apple juice (which is unsweetened) but I used sweetened cranberry juice, and therefore adding 50g (¼ cup) of sugar was definitely enough. You can make the punch without sugar, and then sweeten later if necessary.
Anything is festive fun when it’s with you. :p
Excellent punch! And I say that as a wine drinker.