Nigella christmas

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 mash, with a crunchy topping, that has revolutionized my cooking life. I made them for the first time last year for Thanksgiving, and they have happily appeared on my table several times since. They come heartily recommended with the Slow-Cooked Black Treacle Ham, and any time you want to spread…

There are three crucial things that I think make the difference here: the heat of the fat, the size of your potatoes and finally, dredging the potatoes.

"I creep into the kitchen the next morning to check on the cookies, and I feel just like a kid at Christmas."

This is a fabulous cake I made as part of the recent Christmas and New Year festivities. It’s a relatively simple cake to make, as there’s no baking required rather an assembly of different lusciou…

I think it’s hard to improve on this cake: dark, damp, squidgy and luscious. You don’t taste the chocolate full-on – the cocoa just leaves a hint of smoky richness.

Christmas Recipes by Nigella Lawson. Marvellous to watch even if you don't want to cook them.

I can�t disentangle the smell of gingerbread from the smell of Christmas, I can think of no better welcome as people come through the door of the kitchen than the waft of it baking

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, out go the Rich Tea biscuits and in come amaretti and — in the seasonal spirit — I’ve crammed in some Brazil nuts and glacé cherries (as red as Rudolph’s nose), along with snowy mini marshmallows. The fresh snowfall of icing sugar on top might seem seasonal enough, but not for me. So I add…

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 are not just any cocktail sausages: the sesame oil, honey and soy give them a sweet-savoury stickiness that is pretty well impossible to resist. For US cup measures, use the toggle at the top of the ingredients list.

I think the title of this recipe really says it all. I have written so many recipes for trifle, I scarcely dare reiterate my love for it, but this, perhaps the