All the old favourites are there, traditional roast turkey, St Stephen’s Day pie, Christmas pudding and the chocolate Christmas tree, as well as over 100 new recipes to suit modern palettes, including succulent turkey crown with exotic mushrooms and bacon, Christmas quesadillas and a spectacular plum pudding ice-cream. So let’s start the celebrations.

Christmas biscuits

This dough can be used for all kinds of shapes: round, square, rectangular, stars, hearts, teddy bears, animals and birds.

Makes 20-30

175g (6oz) of plain flour

75g (3oz) of butter, diced

50g (2oz) of caster sugar

½ –1 egg, preferably free-range and organic, beaten

  • Preheat the oven to 180°C/ 350°F/ gas mark four. Sieve the flour into a bowl. Rub in the butter, add the caster sugar and mix well. Add in the beaten egg and mix to form a stiff dough.

  • Turn out onto a floured board and roll out to a scant 5mm (1/4in) thickness. Cut the biscuits with the cutter of your choice. Transfer to a baking sheet.

  • Bake in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes, depending on how thick they are. They should be pale golden. Cool on a wire rack.

  • When cold, decorate as desired. We use Wilton gel colours (leaf green and red-red) to make ours festive. Dip the tip of a cocktail stick in the gel colour and blend with plain icing until your desired colour is achieved. Gel colours are quite concentrated, so be careful and start with a tiny dab of the gel. Alternatively, you could just give them a simple dusting with icing sugar, ice them, or sandwich them together with buttercream or jam.

    • Recipe variations

    Christmas tree biscuits

  • Add one teaspoon or more of ground ginger to the dry ingredients. Stamp out into Christmas trees, baubles, Santas, stars, etc. Make a little hole on top with a skewer or a knitting needle to hang. When cooked and cool, decorate as desired and thread with coloured ribbon or string.

    • Lemon icing

    110g (4oz) of icing sugar

    Finely grated rind of 1/2 lemon

    1–2 tbsp of freshly squeezed lemon juice

  • Sieve the icing sugar into a bowl. Add the lemon rind and enough lemon juice to make a softish icing.

    • Chocolate icing

    85g (3oz) of icing sugar

    25g (1oz) of unsweetened cocoa powder

    50g (2oz) of caster sugar

    40g (1 ½ oz) of butter

    2 tbsp of water

  • Sieve the icing sugar and cocoa powder into a mixing bowl. Put the sugar, butter and water into a saucepan. Set over a low heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved and the butter has melted. Bring just to the boil, then draw off the heat and pour at once into the dry ingredients. Beat with a wooden spoon until the mixture is smooth and glossy. It will thicken as it cools.

    • Coffee icing

    110g (4oz) of icing sugar

    1 dessert spoon of coffee essence

    1 tbsp of boiling water

  • Sieve the icing sugar into a bowl. Add the coffee essence and enough boiling water to make it the consistency of thick cream. Beat until smooth and glossy.

    • Pear and cranberry chutney

    Everyone loves this. It’s quick to rustle up, makes great presents and is, of course, delicious served with cold meat, cheese or slathered onto crostini. These chutneys are great to add to a Christmas hamper.

    Makes eight 200ml (7fl oz) jars

    900g (2lb) of pears (approx six)

    450g (1lb) of sugar

    350g (12oz) of fresh cranberries

    225ml (8fl oz) of cider vinegar or white wine vinegar

    1 x 5cm (2in) piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated – 40g (11/2oz)

    1 x 10cm (4in) cinnamon stick

    1 clove

    100g (31/2oz) of raisins

  • Peel, quarter and core the pears and then cut into 1cm (1/2in) dice. Put the pears, sugar, cranberries, vinegar and ginger into a large saucepan. Tie the cinnamon stick and clove in a square of cheesecloth (or just fish them out later) and add to the saucepan. Bring to the boil over a medium heat. Simmer, uncovered, until the cranberries collapse and the pears are tender, about 15-20 minutes.

  • Stir the raisins into the chutney and cook for a further 25 minutes. Remove from the heat. When cool, remove the cheesecloth bag. Refrigerate in a covered container or pot into eight sterilised jars. Store in a cool airy place. It will keep for four/five months, but I like to use it sooner rather than later.