Christmas Pudding Liqueur (with a happy ending!)

A delicious whiskey based liqueur, made from all natural ingredients.

Make this delicious, Christmassy liqueur, perfect for a Christmas Eve tipple, or as a gift - and after straining, save the ingredients which are perfect for using in Christmas makes and bakes!

 

Festive Beard Oil Recipe

A subtly fragranced beard oil with a hint of Christmas scent from the frankincense.

This doesn't just have to be a Christmas gift, it's a great gift to give to your favourite bearded men any time - at other times you could switch the frankincense oil for a change (suggestions below).

Makes six 10ml bottles of beard oil, or four 15ml bottles of beard oil - you can easily halve the recipe if you like. Do not be tempted to increase the ratio of essential oils to carrier oils.

Salted Caramel Fudge (for the Thermomix)

This was without a doubt everyone's favourite fudge last year!

I'm pretty sure there's a reason salted caramel in one form and another has become so prevalent everywhere - and that's because it tastes absolutely divine!

This is my version, tweaked to our preferences and mostly blogged for my own ailing memory, and for my children to be able to find my recipe (because who knows where those scraps of hastily scribbled on paper disappear to!). If you're cooking strictly gluten free, check the chocolate label carefully to ensure it hasn't been made in a factory handling wheat etc. See the notes at the bottom for some nutty suggestions!

If you want to make a selection of fudge, why not try my Chocolate Cookies and Cream Fudge and Festive Fudge with Cranberry and Pistachio recipes too?

Chocolate Cookies and Cream Fudge (for the Thermomix)

Fudge is one of those deliciously decadent treats that people love to make at Christmas - both to eat themselves and as gifts for others. 

Who doesn't love chocolate, and cookies, which make a great monochrome combination that looks very attractive when cut up into cubes and popped into pretty packaging for gifts.

This is my version, tweaked to our preferences and mostly blogged for my own ailing memory, and for my children to be able to find my recipe (because who knows where those scraps of hastily scribbled on paper disappear to!).

If you want to make a selection of fudge, why not try my Salted Caramel Fudge and Festive Fudge with Cranberry and Pistachio recipes too?

Festive Fudge with Cranberry and Pistachio (for the Thermomix)

Fudge is one of those deliciously decadent treats that people love to make at Christmas - both to eat themselves and as gifts for others. 

Cranberry and pistachio makes a really delicious and colourful combination, which looks beautiful when cut up into cubes and popped into pretty packaging for gifts.

This is my version of festive fudge, tweaked to our preferences and mostly blogged for my own ailing memory, and for my children to be able to find my recipe (because who knows where those scraps of hastily scribbled on paper disappear to!). If you're cooking strictly gluten free, you will need to ensure you have an appropriate brand of white chocolate (check the label for 'may contain...', as some chocolate is processed in factories handling wheat etc.), and also check the nuts to be on the safe side.

If you want to make a selection of fudge, why not try my Salted Caramel Fudge and Chocolate Cookies and Cream Fudge recipes too?

Christmas Spiced Honey Roast Almonds (includes Thermomix instructions)

A delicious treat, perfect for serving up to guests with festive drinks, or packing up for Christmas gifts in pretty jars.

Beware, these are incredibly more-ish! And pretty easy to make too, so don't say I didn't warn you!

They do last a few weeks, but I don't think you'll be needing to worry about that - more about not eating them all in one sitting!

You can substitute your favourite nuts if you'd rather not use almonds, just keep an eye on them in the oven. Skin on almonds work particularly well, as the glaze adhers to the crinkly skin of the almond nicely.

Christmas Pudding Truffles (can be gluten free, includes Thermomix method)

Fun canapes, or a festive gift.

Inspired by pretty truffles I'd seen made last year with leftover Christmas pudding, I wanted to make something similar, but using the small fruit cakes that are widely available - and also available gluten free so making it even more accessible (do check the labels on the chocolate you use though, as some bars are prepared in factories handling wheat)!

           

If you don't want to use alcohol, you could just use pure apple, orange or pomegranate juice depending on your preference. I recommend using foodsafe gloves to roll up the balls as I feel it is much easier to handle them as well as being more hygienic, and you won't get into a sticky mess!

Makes around 25 truffles.

Mincemeat Stars (including Gluten Free alternatives)

A delicious alternative to traditional mince pies at Christmas time!

Several years ago, I saw these beautiful little traditional Finnish Christmas tarts called 'joulutorttu', which are traditionally filled with prune jam, that I thought would work wonderfully as a mince pie alternative filled with mincemeat instead.

I played around with them, trying different ways of making sure they didn't burst or come apart during baking, and looked pretty, and this is what I came up with.

You could make your own mincemeat and my easy (gluten free) puff pastry (Thermomix methods for both), or you can simply use a pack of pre-rolled puff pastry and a (411g) jar of mincemeat if you're pushed for time and want the easy alternative. Either way they'll have a lovely home-made look, keep well, and are perfect to offer to unexpected guests that drop by over the festive period, so make a nice little stash as they're very more-ish!

Makes either 20 mini mincemeat stars (my preference), or you could make eight large ones.

Gingerbread Men / Christmas Gingerbread Shapes (includes Thermomix method)

For many people gingerbread is synonymous with the festive period, and it's also pretty easy to make and fun to decorate!

As well as being delicious, it also keeps well, so makes wonderful gifts and even decorations for your tree (providing you haven't got any sneaky snackers in your household!).

Gingerbread my son made for his friends - see, it's that easy a child can make it!

With the icing sugar, if you're making these for anyone who has a compromised immune system, is pregnant or elderly etc., you can either purchase cartons of pasteurised egg white from most supermarkets, or buy powdered egg white in packets to make up, as an alternative to using a raw white egg white.

Gingerbread drizzled with white chocolate and shortbread drizzled with dark chocolate.

As an alternative they are also nice drizzled with white or dark chocolate. I've made them drizzled with white chocolate before, and packaged up with shortbread drizzled with dark chocolate, which made a really pretty contrast.

My son rolling out his final tray of gingerbread, there were three trays altogether.

This yields three baking sheets of biscuits - so approximately 30 larger shapes, or 60 small and medium mixed shapes.

Luxury Sherry Trifle with Fresh Raspberries (with Thermomix instructions)

A traditional-based sherry trifle perfect for special occasions - you can leave out the sherry if you want the kids to have some too!

In our family, it has become traditional to make a sherry trifle over the festive period. I have given you the option whether you wish to make this trifle with or without  jelly - I like to make mine without, with plenty of fresh raspberries lightly crushed and crammed into the middle to counteract the sweetness of the sherry-soaked sponge and the custard.

Custard wise, if you own a Thermomix, I've put instructions for making your own custard at the bottom; if not a 500ml tub of good quality thick custard is perfect for the job (or of course, you could make up 500ml of instant custard if you prefer a more set texture).

This should serve around ten people, or a few more if the portions aren't too large!

Luxury Fruit Christmas Cake (includes Thermomix method)

A rich and decadent traditional style Christmas cake, packed with fruit

For me, this is best prepared by around mid-November, so you can give it a few 'feeds' of brandy before Christmas. This makes one large cake, which is great if you have a family who really love it and will get through it (although it will keep for up to a year!) - or if you don't want lots of leftovers, you can cook it in a large square tin (which is what I generally prefer to do), then just before you're ready to ice it, cut into four smaller square cakes and give three away!

Yes, there is a 'little' missing from the top left square of the cake in the bottom middle photo...

As far as the mixed fruit goes, you can play about with the dried fruit types and quantities I've given you in the ingredients. If you don't like something, then substitute it for something you do like, the same weight - chopped dried apricots or dates, dried cherries, blueberries, pineapple - whatever you fancy. Play around with the weights of different things if you want too, just try and keep the overall weight the same (1kg dried fruit including glace cherries). If you don't have bags of assorted dried fruits permanently hanging around your kitchen cupboards like I seem to have, then for convenience you could just buy an 800g pack of dried mixed fruit of your choice (preferably including peel if you like it) and a 200g tub of glace cherries (or buy a 1kg mix including glace cherries) and mix with the liquid ingredients. Easy peasy!

Piccalilli with Pears and a Hint of Red Chilli (includes Thermomix method)

The perennial English mustard pickle favourite - punchy, crunchy piccalilli is perfect with pork pie, cheeses and cold meats all year around.

Having a kitchen helper or two will shave lots of preparation time from the recipe (whether they're smaller versions of yourself, or a clever appliance you can plug into the wall!), however it's all worth it for the amount of jars you'll end up with, which you can share around the family and friends (or hoard all for yourself if you're a complete piccalilli fiend!).

You'll end up with around three metric tonnes of piccalilli... no, just kidding, but you will need a pretty mahoosive pot to mix it all together with at the end: e.g. a 5 litre stock pot will do it - or use two large pans - or alternatively you can easily halve the quantities in this recipe. The whole recipe will make 4,800 to 4,900g piccalilli, so have plenty of jars ready to go - and it will easily last a year or more in sterilised jars.

How much it makes - smallest jars 326g

It's your choice whether to make this a chunky piccalilli to have as a side to cheddar, pork pie, ploughman's salad etc., or whether to cut it more finely, so you can have it as a sandwich pickle. I tend to cut mine on the finer side, so that it can be enjoyed as a side, and in lovely doorstep sandwiches. Makes a fabulous gift, and has a much more tasty and refined flavour than the bought jars of piccalilli which can be rather astringent from the vinegars used in them, or packed full of sugar.

Cranberry Sauce with Port and Orange (includes Thermomix instructions)

Delicious served as a condiment with a roast turkey dinner, on the side of cold meats, or in a baguette with soft brie, and maybe even a little bacon, or with turkey, ham and stuffing!

Cranberry sauce isn't just for Christmas, so why not make more of this deliciously tart and tangy sauce! This luxury version is enhanced by the flavours of port, orange and a hint of star anise, and as well as the traditional foil for a rich turkey dinner, it is the perfect partner to rich and creamy French cheeses and cold meats.

This yields about 1.1 to 1.2 litres of sauce, and it will keep unopened in the fridge for many months (mine usually happily lasts up to a year, or more!) if sealed in sterilised jars, as well as keeping a good few weeks after being opened. Makes a lovely gift, too. Around 50 calories per tablespoon.

Bejewelled Festive Fruity Mincemeat (includes Thermomix method)

A rich mix of colourful dried fruits, festive spices and slivered almonds, fragrant with orange and spiked with brandy

For the uninitiated who may be daunted by the idea of eating sweet meat pies, worry not - mincemeat generally stopped containing actual meat about halfway through the last century, although from the 15th century onwards, it was exactly what it said on the tin! Now it's usually a heady mix of dried fruit, spices, distilled spirit, and frequently suet (which is often vegetarian now too), and sometimes mixed peel and nuts.

The great thing about mincemeat, is that it keeps really well, frequently for a year, and sometimes another year after that (some people revive it with another glug of brandy stirred in, or whatever spirit is to hand). It's most commonly used to make 'mince pies', and can also be used inside festive 'strudel' type pastries. My preference is to make it into mincemeat stars (inspired by the Finnish festive star-shaped pastries, Joulutorttu, which are filled with plum or apricot jam and look so pretty) which I started making many years ago and have now become something of a family tradition. If you can make this a couple of weeks ahead of using it, the flavours will develop really nicely, but if (like me) you frequently end up fire-fighting everything you need to do in the week (or couple of days!) before Christmas, then don't worry - I've made it and used it on the same day, and it still tastes fantastic! This quantity will fill two large 800g jars (or an equivalent volume of smaller jars) with a tbsp or two left over.

Autumn-Spiced Braised Red Cabbage (includes Thermomix method)

A really delicious way of cooking red cabbage, with warm spices and fruity notes.

This is perfect as a side dish to compliment game, pork, duck, turkey and even sausages - and it's brilliant served with Christmas dinner too! This will make a good quantity (it should feed eight to twelve easily, more if part of a large meal with other vegetable side dishes), and if frozen in food bags with the air squeezed out, it will keep for months and months in the freezer.

If you have leftovers in the fridge, they're also nice cold with sliced roast meats, cheese, pork pie etc. It re-heats perfectly, and is therefore great to make the day before, or even well in advance and freeze, if you're cooking for a hungry crowd and want to minimise preparation and cooking on the actual day!

You'll need a large dish with a lid to cook this - preferably pyrex or earthenware, and it will be a lot quicker to prepare the ingredients if you have a food processor with a slicing blade (or see Thermomix method).

Calories, for those counting -129 for a twelfth.

Chocolate Orange Liqueur - Orange Optional (includes Thermomix method)

A decadent after-dinner treat, delicious poured over ice, or into coffee...

You can choose to make this with or without the orange flavour, and have 'just' a chocolate liqueur if you prefer - or you can tart it up with a few drops of mint essence, or a splash of frangelico for a hazelnut / praline flavour.

           

I mean... it's chocolate - what could possibly go wrong?!

So anyway, however you fancy your chocolate liqueur, here's how to make it! It will yield just over 1,200ml, so if you use 40% spirits to make it, then your end result will be around 12% alcohol by volume (abv), and if you use scrupulously clean equipment to make it, and store in sterilised bottles in the fridge, it should keep for a couple of months (if it lasts that long!!). If you give this to people as a gift, you will have their undying love and loyalty for the rest of your life (possibly).

A couple of 'retro' ingredients, but the tasters agree it's rather good! And it's under half the price you'd pay if you bought chocolate liqueur ready made!

The Perfect Sous Vide Turkey (and a brine to make your oven-baked turkey more succulent)

It's so unbelievably good, it's DEFINITELY not just for Christmas, or Easter, or Thanksgiving...

Aside from a turkey afficionado's dream for cooking the perfect turkey, this is also perfect for making the most extraordinary use of those frozen (single) turkey breasts marketed for family roast dinners, which come in 800g frozen packs in the supermarket - not my usual choice, but when you're initially experimenting, you don't want to be going out buying enormous, organic, rare-breed turkeys and butchering them into appropriate portions at great cost to yourself - so this is where I started off to perfect the brine and cooking.

And, with the brine and cooking time perfected, it was literally the best turkey breast I'd ever tasted in my life! So, you can stick with the frozen, more economical version, knowing it's going to turn out sublimely, or ramp it up to something more upmarket in the turkey arena, knowing you'll have a rapturous experience when you bite into that first mouthful of moist, tender, free-range, slow-growing, individually plucked and hung turkey, delicately flavoured with subtle herbs and spices, perfectly browned at the end, in a pan, to bring out those rich caramelised flavours... oh, sorry, did I make your mouth get a bit excited?!

Aromatic Spiced Mango and Apple Chutney

Well, if you're going to the trouble of making yourself a good curry...

...you should certainly have a go at making this delicious mango chutney to eat before (with poppadoms etc.) or with your dinner (especially if it's a curry!).

If you're counting, it's approximately 17 calories per level tablespoon - great with curries and poppadoms etc., and also left-over roasts such as turkey, pork, chicken and ham, and strong cheeses! Also great to give away as a Christmas gift!

Cauliflower Cheese with Roasted Cauliflower and a Parmesan Crust

When it's good, it's very, very good...

If you're passionate about cauliflower, you'll find that tossing it in oil then roasting it intensifies and transforms the taste, giving a deep, nutty,  flavour. You could eat it on it's own like this, with a sprinkling of sea salt, or use it in other dishes, such as this cauliflower cheese dish. I think it's perfect for cauliflower cheese, because it means you avoid two heinous crimes against said dish, being either a watery sauce leaching out from soggy cauliflower (from the juices leaking out) or a stodgy lump you can pick up on your fork, from the dish cooking too long and all liquids evaporating. Yes, you know what I'm talking about! (Don't mention this to Grandma).

I have given you two versions, naughty and nice - one for the sinful amongst you, made with a traditional Béchamel and plenty of cheese, the other equally tasty, but with a lighter gluten-free version of a Béchamel sauce, both topped with a Parmesan cheese crumb. How much, if any, of the Parmesan crumb you choose to sprinkle on is up to you - you may just decide you prefer to have grated cheese on top. Or nothing extra. What you will get, though, is delicious cauliflower in a silky sauce. If you want to make it a little more punchy, add a spoonful of Dijon or English mustard to the sauce, and if you haven't got time to infuse the milk with the onion, you could cheat and add a little onion powder / granules instead.