Cheese Stars
This is a new variant of an old and easy party favourite. The dough is mixed up in the processor and rolls out easily. It may crack a bit for the first roll-out, but just resquidge together and roll o…
Christmas
I am not a great one for starters before Christmas Dinner, but I will certainly have plates of Parmesan Shortbreads and my Panettone Stuffing Squares dotted around the place alongside a jug or two of my Christmas Cup, and may even offer the odd Poinsettia too - and if you want to do likewise, just follow the Christmas Cup recipe, but substitute Grand Marnier, Triple Sec or Cointreau for the Cherry Brandy and cranberry juice for the ginger ale.
The old fave, my Spiced and Superjuicy Turkey is hard to resist – there's something about the brining method which makes the turkey easier to carve into elegantly thin slices, so not only will you feel better on the day but also the turkey will go further – and for me this has to go with Allspice Gravy, Gingerbread Stuffing and Redder Than Red Cranberry Sauce. But I do want to draw your attention, as well, to the Turkey Breast Stuffed with Italian Sausage and Marsala-Steeped Cranberries. This is particularly fab for a party, when you can cook it and slice it (easily) into generous slabs. I know that Perfect Roast Potatoes is an immodest title but, I promise you, they are a seasonal spud sensation. My mother always served her Brussels Sprouts with a lot of buttered chestnuts (and cooked and peeled her own). I have upped the ante by adding gorgeous salty pancetta cubes (feel free to substitute bacon) and been unapologetically lazier by buying vacuum-packed ready cooked and peeled chestnuts.
We've also got both my Ham in Coca Cola and Ginger-Glazed Ham, both of which are just divine with the Spiced Peaches. Veggie diners are not left out, either, as I have a splendiferous Roast Stuffed Pumpkin with Gingery Tomato Sauce. I urge you also to reconsider the seasonal sprout, and go for the Hearty Wholewheat Pasta with Brussels Sprouts, Cheese and Potato, a truly satisfying veggie option (and an excellent way of absorbing excess alcohol, I should add).
Oh dear: I am trying to keep this brief, but am finding it difficult as there is just so much food to celebrate at Christmas. For pudding, I suggest to you my old favourites (and this is absolutely a time for tradition and my own Christmas ritual relies on them): Ultimate Christmas Pudding with Rum Butter and Eggnog Cream; Yule Log; Star-Topped Mince Pies!
Still, there’s room for innovation too, so you will also find my Christmas Morning Muffins, Salted Caramel Brandy Butter, Gorgeously Golden Fruit Cake (which happens to be gluten-free), Spruced-Up Vanilla Cake, Christmas-Spiced Chocolate Cake (another gluten-free treat), Christmas Chocolate Cookies, and even a luxuriously chocolatey Christmas Pudding for Christmas Pudding Haters.
But I couldn't just end there: this is after all the season of glorious indulgence, so I had to give you my utterly ravishing but easy and no-cook Italian Christmas Pudding Cake and, of course, a little seasonal jollity in the form of my Chocolate Salame.
And my Christmas tradition – which for me marks the start of my own festive season – involves making up a batch of Edible Christmas Decorations with my children.
Merry Christmas, Buon Natale, Happy Holidays and here's to cooking and eating our way into a fantastic new year!
Salted Caramel Brandy Butter
To make this brandy butter you will need to have prepared my Salted Caramel Sauce.
Cosmo Cocktail Sausages
I couldn’t help myself. I can’t have a party without some cocktail sausages and wanted to make them just a little bit differently from usual. The inspiration comes from a Cosmopolitan cocktail: in pla…
Panettone Stuffing Squares
I have written a recipe for panettone stuffing before: the sweet seasonal fruit bread was cubed, toasted and mixed with Italian sausage; this is very different, not least because I see it not as an ac…
Parmesan Shortbreads
This is an Italian-inspired recipe that comes to me from Australia via Brazil. To explain: a Brazilian friend, and the best cook I know, Helio Fenerich made it for me, and I had to keep (rudely) askin…
Brussels Sprouts With Chestnuts, Pancetta and Parsley
The sprout recipe below is really only a slight detour from the traditional route. By all means, stick to the orthodox if you prefer by adding only buttery chestnuts to the Brussels sprouts, but what…
Chestnut Chocolate Pots
I'm almost embarrassed by how easy these are. It's true that you do need a processor, though you could just chop well and whisk using a lot of elbow grease. As an experiment, I also tried the chestnut…
Gingerbread Stuffing
Sometimes, it makes sense to use one’s obsessions to advantage. I know that most people don’t have trivial light-bulb moments when the notion pops into an already food-filled head to make a stuffing i…
Smooth Hatbox Icing
I love a plain white-iced cake: smooth icing, wrapping the cake almost like a hatbox. I am happy to have this decorated, but I'd just as soon the decorations were also white. Here, I've cut out a wibb…
Rocky Road Crunch Bars
If ever there were questions raised about the need for Rich Tea biscuits, then Rocky Road would be all the answer required. A doddle to make, and easily transportable, a batch of these has saved me of…
Maple-Roast Parsnips
I’ve always roasted honeyed parsnips alongside a turkey but as a marker of the culinary special relationship celebrated at Christmas, I’ve remodelled slightly, adding intensity of sweetness to the alr…
Chocolate Chestnut Refrigerator Cake
This is another of my maternal grandmother's recipes. I've changed it a bit, not least substituting dark rum for her juice and zest of an orange and a slug or two of Grand Marnier. It's not that I did…
Chocolate Cloud Cake
On days when I want the warmth of the hearth rather than the hurly burly of the city streets I stay in and read cookery books, and this recipe comes from just the sort of book that gives most succour,…
Chocolate Fruit Cake
This is the perfect cut-and-come again cake for any time of the year. It lasts for a fortnight, but has the squidgy fabulousness of something so much less serviceable-sounding. I know there are a lot…
Christmas-Spiced Chocolate Cake
I love a fallen chocolate cake, and have found most everyone else does too. The cakes are so called because they are compact and flourless and, when cooling out of the oven, their rich centres drop an…
Devil's Food Cake
Forget the name, this cake is heavenly. The crumb is tender, the filling and frosting luscious. When I made it one Friday, I expected my children, resident food critics much in the mould of the Grim e…
Italian Christmas Pudding Cake
This recipe is my own but at the same time a conflation of a couple of Italian Christmas must-haves: the glorious, fruit-studded panettone and crema di mascarpone, which is best described as tiramisu…
Turkey and Glass Noodle Salad
I love recipes using up leftovers, and this is a particular favourite because it suddenly goes off on another tangent, so to speak. The zingy South-East Asian flavours certainly give new life to the o…
Turkey Breast Stuffed With Italian Sausage and Marsala-Steeped Cranberries
I know it might sound a bit of a faff, but take it from me that stuffing a whole double breast joint is very much easier than stuffing and rolling a single breast joint, as is more commonly found in s…
Butternut and Sweet Potato Soup
Ever since I overcame my prejudices about buying pre-chopped fruit and veg, my cooking life has got a lot simpler. And you should know that in Italian markets, storeholders regularly sell peeled and p…
Perfect Roast Potatoes
Needs must and all that, so I have always been an open anti-perfectionist, but in truth (and I’m sorry to repeat what I’ve said before) it is impossible to cook roast potatoes without needing them to…
Chocolate Salame
I’ve encountered quite a few versions of chocolate salame in Italy — coming to the conclusion that it’s really an Italian version of our chocolate refrigerator cake — and although I am not normally a…
Chocolate Guinness Cake
This cake is magnificent in its damp blackness. I can't say that you can absolutely taste the stout in it, but there is certainly a resonant, ferrous tang which I happen to love. The best way of descr…
Chilli Jam
Although I call this chilli jam, I don't mean by this that it's the sort of thing you'd spread on your toast at breakfast (though smeared inside a bacon sandwich, it could be a real help one hungover…
Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake
This is, for me, the quintessential chocolate cake: melting, luscious and mood-enhancingly good. A food technologist would explain this in terms of "mouthfeel" but I don't know quite how that makes me…
I've made this cake many times and never a crumb has been left ! Everyone I made it for has said how lovely it is and is become my go to cake for all occasions ! Thank you Nigella for all your lovely recipes xBy suzy28
Ham in Coca Cola
Only those who have never tried this raise an eyebrow at the idea. Don't hesitate, don't be anxious: this really works. No one who cooks it, cooks it just once: it always earns a place in every repert…
Clementine Cake
This, an adaption of Claudia Roden's magnificent orange and almond cake, is a wonderfully damp, dense and aromatic flourless cake: it tastes like one of those sponges you drench, while cooling, with s…
Pomegranate Jewel Cake
Many cultures use food that resembles money — lentils for coins, saffron for gold — in celebratory meals, to invoke a wish for prosperity and good fortune ahead, and this fragrant, light, flourless al…
Anglo-Italian Trifle
I don't think I could write a book that didn't include a recipe for trifle somewhere — and this, I tell you, is the trifle to end all trifles. The shiny black of the berries, the soft whiteness of the…
Irish Cream Tiramisu
I've long been tinkering about with a bottle of Bailey's, seeing how it could best be called upon in the kitchen, and I think, with this, I've found it. An Italian friend of mine, who makes a killer t…
Once you try this recipe you’ll never make tiramisu any other way. It is the best ever! People talk about it for years and years. Thank you.By Happeehappeejoyjoy
Chocolate Raspberry Pavlova
You just cannot beat a pav in my book, and I glory in particular this dark beauty. The crisp and chewy chocolate meringue base, rich in cocoa and beaded nuggets of chopped plain chocolate, provides a…
Edible Christmas Tree Decorations
I couldn’t have Christmas without these, or at least, not happily. Rituals are essential to give us meaning, a sense of ceremony, and making these peppery, gingerbready edible decorations is how I hav…
Allspice Gravy
Generally speaking, the best gravies are made by deglazing a joint’s cooking juices in the roasting tin, but, with a brined bird, the liquid it gives off is just too salty; you can’t use more than 2–3…
Redder Than Red Cranberry Sauce
When I was a child, I don’t think fresh cranberries were ever seen in England. For me, cranberry sauce came out of a jar — and my mother was the sort of person who made her own mayonnaise. Actually, I…
Butternut Squash With Pecans and Blue Cheese
Although this started off as a Christmas-time recipe, I have found that I cook it pretty much year round: the sweet squash is tangily countered by the blue cheese and the nuts bring gorgeous crunch, t…
Chocolate Pudding for Christmas Pudding Haters
Christmas pudding isn’t for everyone and, even though I have faith in my pudding’s ability to convert, there’s no point nagging or, indeed, fighting against real, die-hard antipathies. Besides, I have…
Christmas Chocolate Cookies
I love these dark, fat patties of chocolate shortbread exuberantly topped with festive sprinkles. There’s something so cheering about the sight of them, but they have more in their favour than looks:…
Christmas Cup
For parties or any type of seasonal entertaining, I like a cocktail that gets poured together in a jug rather than mixed up by the glass. And this is the perfect drink for Christmas: the fizzy white w…
Christmas Morning Muffins
I have never quite understood how people can go in for vast, rich breakfasts on Christmas morning. I am hardly a modest eater by anyone's standards, but even I can't quite accommodate a platterful of…
Christmas Rocky Road
It’s not that I felt my usual Rocky Road Crunch Bars needed any improvement (though fiddling with recipes is one of life’s pleasures) but I thought they would benefit from some seasonal adjustment. So…
Easy-Action Christmas Cake
I just throw everything into a pan, let the heat from the stove send buttery rum and citrus juices permeating into the currants, sultanas and raisins, add flour and eggs, a can of chestnut purée to gi…
Eggnog Cream
The traditional sauce for Christmas pudding is a "hard sauce", that's to say brandy butter but I can't help feeling that this corner-cutting Eggnogg Cream, devised for my Express festivities last year…
Spiced and Superjuicy Roast Turkey
For me the only turkey is a brined one. Not only does it tenderize and add subtle spiciness, but it makes carving the turkey incredibly much easier. You have only to try this method to be utterly conv…
Spruced-Up Vanilla Cake
This is a sleight of hand, or a trick of equipment rather than an act of brilliance. True, the cake does look incredibly complicated and seasonally impressive as it comes to the table, but that is all…
Star-Topped Mince Pies
This is the way I make my mince pies, and there is no changing me or them: they are small, to be popped straight into the mouth in one go; the pastry is plain, the better to contrast with the rich, fr…
Fig and Olive Chutney
I often give homemade chutneys to Italian friends when I visit, as I’m proud of our traditional recipes and know that an English chutney can pair magnificently with an Italian cheese. Italians themsel…
Roast Stuffed Pumpkin With Gingery Tomato Sauce
There is something so magnificent about a whole pumpkin stuffed with jewelled rice, that it doesn’t really need too many side dishes to detract: its starchy interior means you can forgo potatoes or th…
Hearty Wholewheat Pasta With Brussels Sprouts, Cheese and Potato
It is not quite normal to feel as joyous as I do when saying the words “Brussels sprouts”, but this recipe does not merely use said much-denigrated ingredient, it also celebrates it. Sprouts are nutty…
Ice Cream With Cranberry Syrup
Cool, satiny ice cream with a cranberry syrup so jewel-bright and shiny it could be made of molten lip gloss. My great aunt used to make an ice cream studded with raisins and candied peel that she cal…
No-Churn Chestnut Ice Cream
In my view, there is no bad way to eat chestnuts, ever: my greatest — and exquisitely extravagant treat — is a marron glacé. Nothing, though, gives me quite the same frisson of intense, sugary delight…
Mexican Chicken or Turkey Salad With Tomato and Black Bean Salsa
This is the perfect recipe for using leftover chicken or turkey at any time. A jicama is sometimes known as a Mexican potato, though that's a bit misleading since you can eat it raw. It looks like a t…
Red Seasonal Salad
For someone who’s never been to Vietnam, I am piling up quite a few recipes which are Vietnamese in inspiration if not origin. This is a festively toned take on what is sometimes referred to as ‘Vietn…
Mulled Cider
This mulled cider is mellow and fruity and, despite the rum sploshed in as well, mild to the taste and all too drinkable. Just make sure you don’t swig while it’s still mouth-burningly hot.
Ultimate Christmas Pudding
I don’t deny it: there is something unattractively boastful about calling one’s own recipe “ultimate”. But having soaked my dried fruit for this pudding in Pedro Ximénez — the sweet, dark, sticky sher…
Norwegian Pork Ribs
A vital part of the Christmas Eve dinner in Norway, these pork ribs have the tenderest meat and the crunchiest crackling imaginable. You have to take a leap of faith when making them, as the idea of l…
Jansson's Temptation
Known as chip gratin in my house, this is the most fabulous potato bake, and an indispensable part of Christmas celebrations in Sweden: the potatoes are cut as if you were making French fries, then la…
Ruby Noodles
It's true that these made their debut in the 'Christmas Comforts' chapter of Cook, Eat, Repeat as a sprightly and sharp antidote to all the rich feasting (and also, it must be admitted, because of the…
Linzer Cookies
In its wildest dreams, a jammy dodger could never aspire to the melting tenderness and celestial lightness of the Linzer cookie. The idea is the same: two biscuits, sandwiched together with jam, a hol…
Luscious Vegan Gingerbread
I am preposterously proud of this squidgy gingerbread, and I don't mind who knows it. It's everything you want out of a gingerbread — sticky, spicy, deeply aromatic — and you would never miss the butt…
Rhubarb and Custard Trifle
I have published many recipes for trifle and made even more, and this is the one I return to most, even though it’s the first time I’ve actually written it down. This simple, joyous pile-up of sponge,…
Pumpkin and Goat's Cheese Lasagne
One of the questions I am asked most often is how do I come up with recipes? The answer is simple: greed. When I'm not eating, I'm thinking about what I might want to eat, and the notion of pumpkin la…
Roast Duck with Orange, Soy and Ginger
In How to Eat, I had a method for cooking roast duck that involved poaching them on the stove, letting them cool and then roasting them in a hot oven. It worked, giving tender meat and fantastically c…
Chocolate Olive Oil Mousse
I first came across a version of this voluptuously soft, rich chocolate mousse at Morito, one of my favourite places to eat in London. Then — as these things tend to happen — I started finding it ever…
Devilled Eggs
I cannot begin to tell you how good these are. There’s not much that can get me squeezing a fancy-nozzled icing bag, but I can’t get enough of these — and nor can those I make them for. Yes, they are…
Chocolate Gingerbread
I’d never come across a chocolate gingerbread, and after making this one for the first time, I wondered why not. There’s something about the glottally thickening wodge of chocolate chip and cocoa that…
Forgotten Cookies
These little cookies — described by one friend as tasting like a cookie within a cookie — are really a mixture between a meringue and a cookie. Hence they've become known at home, where they're immens…
Sticky Toffee Pudding
There is very little that can compare with the glory of a sticky toffee pudding. My STP is altogether deeper and darker than the original version: it is still sweet, but the muscovado sugar and black…
Sticky. Toffee. Pudding. Three of the greatest words in the English language. This is rich, indulgent and so comforting. The recipe makes a large amount of sauce but the leftovers were fantastic on my morning porridge!By BunnyMayfair
No-Churn Salted Caramel Bourbon Ice Cream
If I don’t have a tub of this in my deep-freeze, I just don’t feel right about things. I have made many no-churn ice creams in my time, but this is the one I make (and eat) the most. And it’s so very,…
Stunning! Can only describe it that way. Easy, tasty and very very moreish.By Jandjbd
Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate
To make this hot chocolate you will need to have prepared my Salted Caramel Sauce.
Calvados Syllabub
Syllabub is one of those ethereal, dreamy confections which seem at odds with the description 'pudding'. But this scented, whipped cream, piled up to swell cloudily out of its container, is a perfect…
Holiday Hot Cake With Eggnog Cream
A warming, welcoming pud full of seasonal spice that can be thrown together in a matter of minutes. Truly a pudding to give thanks for. As for the eggnog cream, by all means add a grating of nutmeg if…
Cappuccino Pavlova
I am inordinately proud of this, and am not ashamed to say so. I have long been a pava-holic but this is my first venture into a fruit-free (though far from fruitless) version. The instant espresso po…
Vanilla Layer Cake with Ermine Icing
This is the sort of cake you’d find in an old-fashioned diner of your dreams: a majestic creation, frosted with fluffy, super-sweet buttercream, just made to stand aloft and enticingly on the counter.…
My Brandy Alexander Pie
This dessert has mixed parentage: I put a recipe for a Brandy Alexander cocktail into the Cookbook Corner section of the old website and almost immediately was tweeted about the wonderful creation tha…
Marshmallow Crispy Squares
You'd think this was designed to keep the children happy, and while that's OK with me, it is the adults who seem to find this particuarly irresistible. If I can find a tub of edible disco glitter in o…
Roast Rib of Beef With Port and Stilton Gravy
There is something about a big rib of beef sitting proudly on its carving board at the table that makes that table, and those around it, so immediately celebratory: this is a proper, stand-up-and-clap…
Hasselback Potatoes
I think of these Swedish roast potatoes as being rather like sauteed potatoes on the stem: each one is cut into thin slices across almost right through, but not quite, and then roasted in buttery oil;…
Summer Pudding
It's true, I admit, that a dessert of compacted berries encased in bread is not an appealing proposition for those who haven't grown up on this seasonal treat, but all it takes is a mouthful to convin…
Cocktail Sausages
If you want to have something hot to pass around on a tray, then cocktail sausages are what you're after. There's nothing fiddly to make, nothing to go right or wrong, and everyone loves them. These a…
Gorgeously Golden Fruit Cake
This is the fruity blonde sister to that brunette temptress, my chocolate fruit cake from Nigella Christmas. It delivers, as promised, a cake of apricot-pear-and-ginger goldenness and goodness, so squ…
Panettone French Toast
While I was tempted to call this Italian Toast, rather than the almost tactless Panettone French Toast, I felt the latter title had the benefit of conveying to you exactly what this is. You can certai…
Christmas Chutney
Chutney is not the most obviously festive, seasonally indulgent, must-have foodstuff, but it is the cornerstone of my Christmas pantry. I begin to hyperventilate, now as I write, even at the idea of n…
Creamy Potato Gratin
My not entirely orthodox way of turning out this otherwise classic dish of cream-softened potatoes has a lot going for it.
Aaah! I simply loved it. I tried it and it came out to be a huge success..Kudos!By saboohie
Mini Pavlovas
These may be mini pavlovas, but there's a big old batch of them, as this recipe comes from a time when my children were little and I would make these for the school summer bake sale. Obviously, you ca…
Snowball In Heaven
If Christmas isn’t the time for a kitsch cocktail, I don’t know when is. And while I have nothing against a straightforward Snowball (and I make mine with one part advocaat to about 3 parts lemonade,…
Chestnut and Pancetta Salad
I've been making this salad in one guise or another since the 90s; indeed, the recipe is to be found in How To Eat, where the salad leaf I proposed was escarole. Unfortunately, it is not easy to find…
Spiced Peaches
I've used bottled peaches, I've used canned peaches, and it honestly doesn't matter which, but I'm afraid you have to resist the healthier peaches canned in fruit juice rather than syrup. If you can f…
Radicchio, Chestnut and Blue Cheese Salad with a Citrus, Grain Mustard and Honey Dressing
Bitter leaves, salty cheese, sweet waxy chestnuts: this is a winter salad that I can't confine myself to eating just in season. I generally go for Gorgonzola or Stilton here, but essentially what you…
Christmas Cupcakes
These beauties also make a very good alternative to mince pies. I buy the icing ready made and dyed (which is why it isn’t a very convincing colour for holly, let’s be frank) and use cranberries as th…
Cider and 5-Spice Bundt Cake
Most of the time I refer to this as my Cider and 5-Spice Gingerbread, but I changed the name out of concern for those who expect a little more gingeriness from their gingerbead (although anyone is fre…
Christmas Puddini Bonbons
These are delectable little bonbons made by mixing up cooked and cooled Christmas pudding (see Additional Information below), liquor, syrup and melted chocolate, rolling them into small balls, then dr…
Egg and Bacon Pie
This recipe (which started off as Boxing Day Pie) comes from Beryl Scoffield, the mother of one of my oldest friends, and a woman with a reputation for her pies. It’s wonderfully old-fashioned and com…
Date and Marmalade Christmas Cake
This cake tastes like Christmas pudding — a very, very good Christmas pudding — the sort the Quakers (as I’m fond of quoting) once magnificently condemned as “the invention of the scarlet whore of Bab…
Vanilla Fudge
For some reason this is known in the Antipodes (and I got this recipe from a Kiwi) as Russian Fudge and, although I like this name better, I feel that it perhaps leads the rest of us to expect somethi…
Vanilla Shortbread
Even if you have never baked anything in your life, you will be able to make these with untroubled ease. And I hate to say this — as someone with a once-serious Bahlsen habit — but they are so much be…
Pumpkin Bundt Cake
It’s no secret that I love a bundt cake: it just looks instantly celebratory. Plus, once you have the tin (and if you don't, you can bake this cake in a 20cm/8 inch square tin) you do want to get good…
Chestnut Cheesecake
There is no doubt about it, anything with chestnuts in it, even if they come vacuum-packed or canned and are perennially available, is so right for this time of year. The chestnuts are present, in the…
Gleaming Maple Cheesecake
This is an exquisite cheesecake, tangy and delicate, with the pronounced smokiness and subdued sweetness of the maple syrup. It has a fabulously light, smooth and voluptuous texture, and two things he…
Ginger-Glazed Ham
This gammon is simply simmered in ginger ale and, although you need to strip off the rind to glaze it, the glaze is straightforward. And it is a very efficient way of cooking — depending on how many y…
Pickled Red Cabbage
Soft, sweetly soused, slow-braised red cabbage is one of the great comforts of winter, but its rich intensity – I think of it rather as the vegetable equivalent of goose, which it partners magnificent…
Red Cabbage with Cranberries
The sweetness of a long-braised red cabbage is perfectly punctuated by the cheek-squeaky sharpness of cranberries. And, if you let this stand a little before serving, they — most desirably — help to t…
Girdlebuster Pie
I confess: it was the title that lured me. Tell me you don’t feel the same. I came across this in a recipe by Elinor Klivans, whom I often turn to for chocolatey solace, in her The Essential Chocolate…
I made this and I busted my girdle.By kimcooksforyou
Seafood Pot
This makes for a very quick, warming and yet elegant supper. A fennel salad before or after would be lovely, but you need no more with it than just some bread for dunking.
Broccoli and Stilton Soup
I use frozen broccoli; actually, frozen organic broccoli, if that makes you feel better. In fact, this is better when made with frozen, and certainly more convenient for an impromptu standby. And plea…
Poinsettia
This is probably the most serviceable, all-round cocktail-party drink: eminently refreshing; satisfyingly quaffable. It started off as a Christmas cocktail, a juicily seasonal Buck’s Fizz (a drink I n…
Hot Schnocolate
Well, how could I resist? A friend gave me this gorgeously named concoction — hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps in it, of course — a Christmas or so ago, and I have had to appropriate it. She cou…
Slow-Cooked Black Treacle Ham
Nothing will ever take the place of my Ham in Coca-Cola from Bites — in my heart or on my table — but this slow-baked ham is a revelation of a different sort. The meat is astonishingly tender and carv…
Christmas Creme Brulee
I don’t need to tell you how beautiful this is: you can see. It’s extravagant, certainly, but it’s meant to be. And it feels like a treat, breaking through that gilt-tortoiseshell crust to the voluptu…
Honey Pie
This is adapted from the Salty Honey Pie from the Four and Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book. I haven’t fiddled much with the ur-version — why mess with perfection? — but mine does have an easier-to-make, no…
Make-Ahead Mash
No one is doubting the glory of mashed potatoes, and while they are not difficult to make, they can be quite a faff in large quantities at the last minute. This is the answer: a tangy, subtly cheesy m…
No-Churn Brandied Pumpkin Ice Cream
The genesis of this particular recipe is the Pumpkin Bundt Cake or, rather, the fact that having made it, I had a small amount of pumpkin purée left over. I paired it with half a tin of condensed milk…
Forgotten Pudding
There is a wonderful poetry to the name of this pudding which, thankfully, once eaten could never be forgotten. It's an old, old recipe rediscovered — I believe — by the late, great Richard Sax. Think…
Roast Goose With Pear and Cranberry Stuffing
While it’s true that goose has the older pedigree as the traditional Christmas roast, I find it suitable only if you haven’t got a huge tableful to feed: I reckon that you can feed six comfortably wit…
Pecan-Plus Pie
This is somewhat of an Anglo-American enterprise. I have taken a pecan pie, and added other nuts, simply because for me, the English festive season means bowls of mixed nuts and the memory of my grand…
Potato, Parsnip and Porcini Gratin
Cooking potatoes for large numbers of people is not always easy. This gratin makes it so, not least because I don’t peel the potatoes (or the parsnips for that matter). Obviously, you don’t need to ma…
Negroni Sbagliato
The classic Negroni is made with Campari, red vermouth and gin. This one, more of a Negroni spritz, using prosecco in place of the gin, is said to have been created by happy accident at the Bar Basso…
Lasagne of Love
This is what I make for my children’s birthday celebrations, for farewell suppers to send them off before they go away, and for the dinners to welcome them back when they come home again. It’s our fam…
Lasagne of love is a suitable name as it is time consuming but well worth it. I have struggled to make a good lasagne for 35 years. At last! Went down very well. Thank you.By Beviec
My Mother's Bread Sauce
I couldn't have Christmas lunch without bread sauce: just the smell of the milk, infusing on the hob, giving off that familiar scent of onion, mace, bay and clove, lets me know it is Christmas. The id…
No-Knead Black Bread
I love proper Eastern European black bread, but I must confess that this loaf, although it tastes the part, is hardly traditional, let alone authentic. For one thing, it’s made following the no-knead…
Looking for more Christmas recipes? have a look at these Thanksgiving recipes, Christmas dessert recipes and Christmas cookie recipes.