Perhaps it’s a bit early for you to think of Christmas. Hallowe’en has just been and gone; the bonfires of Guy Fawkes haven’t yet been lit.

But my Christmas Elf (M) is planning Christmas decorations, and I’m beginning to practise the baking. Last year, with a newborn, we didn’t really do anything. This year, Tiny is bigger and might be able to partake of the excitements. All I insist on is the honouring of Advent by not doing it all at the start of December, but rather spreading it throughout, so we aren’t all Christmassed-out by the time we actually get to 25^th December.

I haven’t made a Christmas cake in several years: it’s the extra long baking time which really puts me off. I focus instead on the gingerbreads and fruity muffins, the cheesecakes and pastry-wrapped Camemberts.

This year, though, I’m looking for a slow-cooker cake recipe. I feel there must be a good one out there, since a normal one needs ages at a relatively low temperature. Basically, it needs to be slow-cooked. So I feel sure someone else has already come up with it. I just need to find it.

I’m also practising excitingly-flavoured breads, to go with the baked Camembert. I’ve been inspired by all the tear-and-share bread-and-Camembert offerings in the supermarkets. Turns out, tear-and-share bread is really easy: it’s just a load of bread rolls too close together, so a ring around a Camembert is a doddle. And it has pretty much the same baking time as the Camembert, so that works out pretty perfectly.

The supermarket versions are often sage and cranberry flavours, which can be a bit sweet and don’t really balance the richness of the cheese very well. My first attempt was a simple herby bread, with a fair whack of the mixed herbs from the cupboard. The second wasn’t bread at all, but a sausage roll wreath with Cumberland sausages. Puff pastry is a bit too, well, flaky for dipping, though. Next time, I shall attempt an onion bread. Or a corn bread. In my hunt for festive recipes I found a chilli cumin cornbread recipe, which might be a good combination.

For now, though, we have a tin full of gingerbread dinosaurs. Because I don’t have a gingerbread man cutter, but I do have a herd of dinosaurs. And a pterodactyl. Next, I’m going to try a sugar cookie recipe.

I’m nearly done with all the Christmas cards I need, which is probably a first. I think I only have maybe four or five left to make, and I had a package from Craftstash the other day with some of the Crafter’s Companion O Holy Night collection. The last few cards will be a doddle, and I’ll probably collect the rest of the set. Most especially I want to get more of the papers which go with it.

Have you started thinking about Christmas yet? Done any baking?