Oh my word, I saw something today I have not seen in years….

An old lady with a blue rinse.

And then my mind went bonkers.  It really got me thinking…..all the way home.

Where do these ladies get their blue rinse done?  Do they actually ask for a blue rinse or is it a home dye job gone bad?  Is it something that hairdressers (using the term loosely here) actually do? Is it that same place that men go to get mullets and comb overs?  If I went to the chemist could I actually find a shade called blue rinse?  Do these ladies actually know that their hair is blue or are have their cataracts really started impairing their vision (bless)? Why is it always blue? If granny wants to go a little crazy with her hair colour, why not green? pink? orange?

My dearest readers, can any of you please demystify the blue rinse for me? I’m dying here from all these questions….

Seeing as we’re talking kitsch here, here’s a little kitsch recipe for these cute little snow-flecked santa brownies.  Sure they’re adore-bubble but they sure taste good as well.

Snow-flecked santa brownies

What you need:

• 115 g dark chocolate (70% cocoa), roughly chopped
• 115 g unsalted butter, cut into chunks
• 175 g brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp flaky sea salt
• 85 g plain flour
• 50 g walnuts
• 50 g white chocolate chips
• 8 strawberries
• 150 ml thickened cream
• icing sugar

What to do:

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F.

Prepare a square 8 x 8 inch tin with baking paper and lightly grease the baking paper with butter or oil spray.

Place a heat proof bowl over a simmering pan of water making sure that the bowl does not touch the water.  Put the chocolate and butter into the bowl and gently melt. Take the bowl off the heat.

Whisk in the brown sugar and eggs (one at a time) into the chocolate.  Add the vanilla extract and salt.

With a spoon or spatula, stir through the flour until just combined then add the white chocolate chips and walnuts and gently stir through until evenly distributed.

Pour into the prepared baking pan and bake for 25 mins or until a skewer comes out without any raw batter.

Let the brownies cool in the pan before cutting.

Using a 2 inch biscuit cutter, cut out rounds of brownies and place them on a serving platter.

Dust the brownies with icing sugar.

Cut a centimetre off the pointy end of the strawberry, this will form the Santa’s hat.  On the base, pipe some cream and then place the hat on the top and pipe a little cream pom pom on top of the hat.  Pop the Santa’s onto the brownies and serve.

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