Goats' Cheese, Onion and Potato Bread with Thyme

Recipe >>> Here <<<
Recipe: Delia Smith
Food styling: Selma Jeevanjee 

Gluten-free stollen

Shot for BBC Good Food magazine, December '11 issue

Recipe: Hannah Miles

Prop styling: Tony Hutchinson

Food Styling: Cassie Best

Boozy sloe gin mincemeat

600g Mixed dried fruit (I used roughly equal parts raisins, currants and sultanas)

200g Unsalted butter

200g Light muscovado sugar

1 Large bramley apple peeled, cored and grated

Zest and juice of one large orange

1/2 tsp Ground cinnamon

A good grating of fresh nutmeg

150ml Sloe gin

Slowly melt the butter in a large pan; take off the heat and stir in the sugar and cinnamon. Mix the dried fruit, grated apple, orange zest, orange juice and sloe gin together in a separate bowl (it's good to do this the night before if you get a chance). Stir the butter into the fruit, mix together well and spoon into sterilised jars. Fashion into untold mince pies.

Pink peppercorn pfeffernusse

For the second time in a week I chanced upon the wolf man on the way home. He seems to just appear on the horizon; long silvery hair, lupine scowl and (seriously) a wolf-embroidered fleece hanging off his bony shoulders. If that wasn't enough, he has TWO ACTUAL WOLVES tethered to his hands, albeit by unnervingly flimsy leashes. It's startling to witness; but has little to do with festive baking. I digress.

It’s Sinterklaas eve on 5^th December. Traditionally, children in Germany, Holland and Belgium leave shoes by the fireplace before bedtime; come the morning it’s hoped that Saint Nicholas will have filled them with treats – Pfeffernusse being a favourite. It feels a bit keen to be making Christmas biscuits at the end of November, but these really benefit from being left in a tin for a couple of weeks so that the spice flavours develop.

Pink peppercorn pfeffernusse
Makes 20

For the biscuits
2 Eggs
230g Light muscovado sugar
250g Plain flour
Zest and juice of 2 satsumas
1tsp Ground cinnamon
1/2tsp Ground mace
1/2tsp Ground cloves
1/3 Freshly grated tonka bean
1tsp Finely chopped pink peppercorns
1tsp Freshly ground black pepper
30g Ground almonds
A pinch of salt

For the sugar coating
2 Egg whites
250g Icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas 2. Whisk the eggs, sugar and Satsuma juice together until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Stir in the zest, spices, pepper, salt and almonds before gradually sifting in the flour, mixing well and shaping into a ball of dough. Knead for about five minutes, then roll into 3cm balls and arrange on a greaseproof lined baking sheet (allowing a fair bit of space around each so that they don’t stick together). Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, turn the oven off and transfer biscuits onto a cooling rack. Whisk the egg whites and icing sugar together, dip each biscuit into the glaze and place back on the greaseproof lined tray. Put the tray back into the cooling oven for about half an hour.