Nothing is more reassuring to a zealous home baker like me than cold crisp winter days combined with festive celebration. Having grown up in Australia where Christmas might be on a blazing hot day, when the last thing you want is cold-weather comfort food, I’m in baking heaven every December in England. Don’t come near me if you’re dodging carbs, I’ll be whipping up old-school steamed puddings, fierce pork pies, foot-long cheese straws made with homemade rough puff, and pulling in friends to drink mulled rum with and reminisce about the year past. But there will be certain things I know I’ll bake each year, and this is my list of Christmas essential baking at our house:
1. Orange pistachio stollen bars
An easy impressive Christmas traybake from The Guardian in 2011, based on a recipe for quarkstollen a reader sent me. The dough mix is rich with low-fat cream cheese and cubes of marzipan, flavoured with orange extract and pistachios, then once baked it’s drenched in melted butter and icing sugar. I make the recipe many times each Christmas, not just to eat at home. It’s luxurious enough to take to friends without looking too showy, but avoids you clashing with the inevitable chocolate brownies that someone’s made: in fact both recipes pair rather well.
Get the recipe on The Guardian website here
2. Two loaves of bread: a sourdough for Christmas eve, and a sour cream sandwich tin loaf for boxing day
We traditionally get together with friends on Christmas eve, drink great champagne when we’re flush and cava when we’re not, and eat smoked salmon, scrambled eggs (made with 15ml each of milk and double cream for every 3 eggs) and hot toast. I bake a loaf of sourdough for it. Why? I have an absolute fundamental belief that a loaf of homemade bread makes life better. Home bread baking reminds you that one simple loaf on the table can be the heart of a joyous meal. I also bake a large tinned sour cream sandwich bread for Boxing Day sandwiches as well on Christmas eve, but no bread on Christmas day.
Get my 2010 sour cream sandwich recipe here on The Guardian website here
3. Caramel Christmas Cake
When it comes to Christmas cake I like it utterly chock full of fruit, nuts and cherries, almost like a cake version of paneforte. And many years back I decided that boiled fruit cakes – confusingly named because only the sugar, butter and spices are boiled together – gave me the texture I was looking for: utterly sticky with a crumb that sliced cleanly. I make an extra dark simple caramel first, then add butter, cream and spices so it splutters into a thick glossy cooked sauce. Then I pour this over the butter, mix it till melted then beat in the eggs, fruit, nuts and flour. I make it a few weeks ahead and have a slice after dinner with brandy.
Get the recipe for my 2010 Caramel Christmas Cake here on The Guardian website
4. Mince pies
There are certain iconic foods that joins Britain together as a nation, and mince pies might be one of them. Even if you have an utter aversion to dried fruit you get seduced by at least one mince pie a year, surely? And you can make them just how you like them. I do like them tiny, but they’re a bit fiddly so only very close friends get those ones. We always make the mincemeat but the trick is to mix one jar of cheap mincemeat with 2 jars of homemade. The cheaper sort is often slightly pureed and this helps to hold the better-flavoured homemade mincemeat together.
Get the recipe for my mince pies on the BakeryBits website here
5. Red Leicester biscuits
I was taught this recipe by Gail, from the bakery Baker & Spice and later Gail’s Bakery, back in the 1990s and I still can eat a vast quantity of them. The dough was essentially an extra-rich shortcrust loaded with grated parmesan, and Gail had the idea to roll the dough into 5cm diameter logs, freeze them, then brush the outside with beaten egg and roll the logs in a mix of seeds like poppy, onion, sesame and anise. We’d slice them 1cm thick and bake them until crisp. To vary things up I make them tody with Red Leicester cheese, and as cheese is such a natural appetite stimulant that they become quite addictive. And a perfect way to toast the Christmas season.
