Sneaky Peak at Christmas in Waitrose 2012

I know it’s only July and it seems a bit crazy for me to be mentioning Christmas but apparently now is peak time for Christmas press shows.  I say that tentatively as this is a whole new world for me.  I’ve not been to any press shows before so as soon as I got the invite I quickly rang my journalist friend to find out a bit more.  In a nutshell a press show is where companies preview upcoming products or collections and invite people to come and have a look.

Given that I have soft spot for Waitrose and I adore Christmas I quickly worked out that I had to go.  My main aims were to find the Christmas baking range and to have a look at the cakes and treats for lots of inspiration.

As soon as I walked in the door two things crossed my mind.  Firstly, I knew I was going to be there for much longer than I had anticipated.  It was far bigger and better than I could have imagined.  The second was to ask myself why did I eat dinner before I came out?  School girl error!!

My Highlights include:

• Meeting Heston Blumenthal and saying something pretty uncool, a bit like the line in Dirty Dancing where Baby says ‘I carried a watermelon’.  Luckily, he seemed to be used to random people chatting to him and was very polite.  It rather made my night to see him.
• Being able to get into the Christmas spirit very quickly by virtue of the fact that the Waitrose team had done a brilliant job of decorating and presenting their products
• Trying and tasting soooo many lovely things including chocolates, biscuits, cakes, cheese, canapes and even Christmas dinner in the little cafe they had set up
• Spending a long time in the baking section touching the products and dreaming about how nice it would look in my own kitchen

So let me take you into my little Christmas bubble just for 5 minutes so I can talk about a few things that caught my eye:

• Beautifully festive cupcake cases (title picture)
  
• Spiced sugar in flavours such as citrus spice and chilli and chocolate.  Imagine how these could jazz up a simple victoria sponge!
• The simple but stunning red and white theme for bakeware and crockery.  Loved the pudding bowl which had ‘the proof is in the pudding‘ written around the rim, and the mixing bowl with ‘stirring up a treat‘ written on it
• Mince pie stencils to create pretty patterns and pictures in icing sugar on the top of mince pies

 

• Heston’s Chocolate Christmas Cake.  Could this be as big as the hidden orange Christmas pudding?  I think Waitrose are hoping so…
• A giant Christmas pudding cake decorated with hundreds of malteasers.  It looked pretty impressive. A smaller, more manageable version will be sold in the shops
• The cutest gingerbread house with mini gingerbread men.  Love making my own with the kids but this would be a beautiful present

• A very cool 4 tiered cheesecake (hubby would LOVE this)
• Gruffalo crumble set for the little ones.  A lovely idea for a gift
• Silver decorative twigs with lots of lovely little bells on.  Reckon I could make a fab Christmas floral display with the help of these

All in all, a stunning collection of Christmas treats to look out for a bit nearer the time, and I have only really shown you the tip of the iceberg.  It amazes me how companies come up with a Christmas range each year that not only keeps with tradition but breaks the boundaries too.  Waitrose seems to manage this with ease.

Do tell me if anything stood out to you or even what you are looking forward to this Christmas.  I’d love to hear all about it.

Thank you to Waitrose and ZPR for inviting me.

Tagged 2012, Christmas, Christmas cupcake cases, Gingerbread House, Gruffalo Crumble set, Heston Blumenthal, HEston Chocolate Christmas Cake, icing sugar stencils, spiced sugar, Waitrose