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Christmas Recipes
Christmas Mincemeat
One of the great traditional foods of a British Christmas is mince pies. You might think this involves meat of some kind, but you'd be wrong. Yes, mince pies contain mincemeat, but there's nothing minced in it, and no meat. Dried and fresh fruit are cooked up with nuts, spices, fat and booze, and the result is delicious.
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Christmas Mince Pies
Mince pies are the essence of Christmas for me. Little tarty things, crispy buttery pastry containing a dollop of fruity, boozy mincemeat (mincemeat recipe here). The name, misleading though it is, possibly comes from a time when all food was called 'meat'.
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Quick Christmas Pudding with Brandy Butter
This is the traditional Christmas pudding with a twist. It's lighter and quicker than traditional recipes - and you don't have to start making it in November! You can do this in one day.
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Christmas Yule Log
This traditional Christmas cake was invented in France, where it is known as 'bûche de Noël'. It's basically a chocolate Swiss roll covered in chocolate ganache and make to look like a log. Quite easy to make and very impressive to look at.
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Christmas Turkey and Ham Pie
Somebody asked me recently if I would make a Christmas pie. Well, I'm not sure there really is such a thing, but I thought a traditional raised-type pie would fit the bill, especially if it contained turkey and ham with a smattering of cranberries.
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Christmas Honey Roast Ham
You can make this ham any time of year, but it looks especially festive at Christmas. It's brilliant served as part of a main meal, but also thickly sliced in sandwiches.
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Jam Roly Poly
Heavy, stodgy, overly sweet - the badly-made jam roly poly served at my school was everything doctors warn us against. But this one is actually quite light, not too sweet, and utterly wonderful.
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Easy Stollen Recipe
This fabulous rich, fruity, German Christmas treat is utterly wonderful and bursting with flavour. As with all breads, you'll be doing quite a lot of kneading and waiting for the dough to rise, but the results are well worth the effort.
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Gingerbread House
A gingerbread house can be a fun thing to make. It can also be torture, because if you haven't had a lot of practise at gingerbread housemaking, many things can go wrong.
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Roscón De Reyes
Traditionally, the Spanish celebrate Christmas on the 6th of January, when the three Kings arrive and give gifts to the children. Roscón De Reyes is a bread / cake that is eaten at this time. It's similar to brioche, but made in a ring, like a crown, and decorated with candied fruit, like jewels. Roscón De Reyes is also popular in Latin America, where it is known as Rosca De Reyes.
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Christmas Burger
As Christmas approaches, I've noticed burger shops, especially independent ones, creating their own version of a Christmas burger. Many of them are not very Christmassy. I decided to create my own, using as many of the elements of a traditional Christmas dinner as possible.
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Eggnog
Eggnog is thought to have evolved from posset in the 13th Century. Egg nog is very popular in the US and Canada, but less so in the UK. Eggnog is very easy to make and tastes delicious - it's almost like an alcoholic custard made from eggs, milk, cream and dark spritis such as rum, brandy or Bourbon.
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Christmas Pizza
Christmas dinner pizza sounds weird - let's be honest, it IS weird - but it's very tasty and easy to put together, especially if you use a pre-made pizza base.
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Chestnut and Cranberry Stuffing Wrapped in Bacon
Stuffing is a common accompaniment to chicken, turkey, or other birds. Its purpose originally was to lubricate the inside of the bird to stop it drying out. Stuffing isn't often cooked inside birds these days - it's better to cook it separately. In this Christmas version, I roll the stuffing in bacon woven into a lattice. It looks sensational and can be served as a main course itself.
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Turducken - Three-bird Roast
I've always shied away from trying a 'turducken', a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken, and all stuffed with stuffing. Speaking as the inventor of the domestic long egg, it seemed gimmicky to me.
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Easy Christmas Pudding
The traditional Christmas pudding is a heavy, dense thing, and trying to eat a portion just after a massive Christmas main course is just silly. And also, the trad pud has to be steamed for several hours. This cheats recipe for Christmas pudding is based around a jar of mincemeat - it's light, fruity, and cooks in the microwave in about 10 minutes.
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Big Pork Pie - Stand Pie
This big pork pie is made for sharing. It appears at Christmastime in Yorkshire, although I dare say other regions have them and you can get them all year round. 'Stand' is short for 'standing', because this is a raised pie that's made around a former. At first glance you might mistake this stand pie for a Melton Mowbray pie, but it isn't. The main difference is that the pork in a stand pie is cured, making it pink. The meat in a Melton Mowbray pie is not cured and takes on a greyish colour.
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Gingerbread Sleigh and Reindeers
There are those who say no Christmas is complete without something made out of gingerbread - a house, typically, but really anything goes - your favourite building, your dog, or Santa's sleigh with edible reindeer. Yum.
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Bread Pudding
Versions of bread pudding can be found all over the world. After all, everybody has bread and everybody needs things to do with the leftovers. Bread pudding is not the same as bread and butter pudding - that's slices of bread baked in an egg custard. Bread pudding has more of a cakey texture. There's a couple of similar variations in the UK - Nelson Cake (after the town in Lancashire), and the Wet Nelly from Liverpool.
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British Christmas Dinner and all the trimmings
Making a British Christmas Dinner, roast turkey and all the trimmings, can be a challenge. It's something you might only do once a year, and likely for a lot more people than you normally cook for. To make it easier, plan ahead and do as much prep as you can the day before. And don't give yourself too much work to do - I think three vegetables and two type of potato is more than enough. Good luck and don't panic!
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Christmas Sherry Trifle
Trifle is a wonderful concoction of fruity jelly with some kind of sponge cake in it, set custard, whipped cream and maybe fruit and nuts on top. And it's not just for Christmas.
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Christmas Dinner Pastie
For a change from turkey curry, how about making these Christmas dinner pasties - they're a great way to use up some leftover turkey, stuffing, pig-in-blanket and gravy. And even if you don't have any of those left over it's quite easy to make everything from scratch.
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Cinnamon Rolls Christmas Tree
Cinnamon rolls are a delicious treat all year round, but for the festive season why not make it extra special by doing it in the shape of a Christmas tree?
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Budget Christmas Dinner - Only £2.50 a Head!
We are all feeling the pinch this year with rampant inflation, constantly rising food prices and almost unaffordable energy costs. On top of this the avian flu outbreak means that fresh poultry is likely to be in short supply and prices of frozen birds are higher than previously.
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Vegetarian Christmas Wreath
Here's an idea for a tasty and great-looking Christmas dinner centrepiece. The shortcrust pastry roll contains caramelised onions, mushrooms and Brussels sprouts and parsnips. It's served with a melted cheese dip.
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Hauswirt K5 Pro Air Fryer Oven Review
With the recent rocketing price of energy, people are paying much more attention to the efficiency, or otherwise, of their cooking gadgets. It has become apparent the the most cost-effective users of electricity in the kitchen are microwaves and airfryers. People have been falling over themselves to get hold of airfryers, so it was quite convenient that Hauswirt asked me to review this one.
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Christmas Cake
I've always been put off making Christmas cake by the insistence of purists that you must make it at least five weeks in advance and feed it regularly with brandy to keep it moist. But you can have this cake finished and ready eat in only two days and you'll never know the difference.
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Gingerbread Biscuits / Cookies
Somehow, gingerbread biscuits cut into various shapes have become traditional at Christmas time. They're very easy to make, although the decoration might be a bit of a challenge.
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