This collection of Christmas recipes from Delia Smith includes five different Christmas cakes, a complete vegetarian menu, recipes for gifts such as chocolate truffles, and many traditional favorites. There are also ideas for festive occasions from drinks parties to dinner parties, with dishes such as Roast Goose with Potato, Sage and Apple Stuffing, Caramelized Orange Trifle, and a Terrine with Four Cheeses.
Delia Smith’s Christmas Review
Wrap Up Christmas With a Neat Little Bow – And Delia’s Help!
This is just one of our 7 Super Christmas Cookbooks. To take a look at the other recipe books that made the cut, you can check out the full article here.
I have to confess; a self-confessed bake-aholic I may be but this is the first of Delia’s books that I have ever opened! I know, I know. Perhaps it was the teaching-us-to-suck-eggs style cooking of the naughties that led me to avoid her recipes like the plague. But oh my, was I wrong.
There’s a reason Delia is the heralded Queen of the Kitchen. Brimming with so many goodies, it’s just impossible to know quite where to start with this book. First off: I love the idea of the breakdown of shopping lists (including one for all of the non-general kitchen items).
Normally it’s The Duchess who’d put organisation before the fun of the cooking, but I am in complete agreement with the two Ds on this one. It just makes the festivities that much more enjoyable when we’re stocked up and good to go… and Delia leaves no stone un-turned! I also love the ever practical list of recipes which can be frozen for up to a month. What a fab idea for saving time, when, let’s face it, you want to be joining in with everybody else and experiencing full throttle merriment.
And as for the recipes, well, once again I also don’t know quite where to begin! The traditionalist in me adores the entire section dedicated to Christmas puds and mincemeat. It’s all very well having new ideas and spins on yuletide recipes, but there’s a lot to be said about honouring and getting the basics right. Our rich food heritage is something to be proud of, after all. But alternatively the Truffle Torte, Caremalised Orange Trifle (you’ve just got to have a trifle at Christmas!) and fabulous gift boxed idea of the Buttered Toffee Brazils, really have my mouth watering… And with some truly inspired canapes and nibbles, a whole chapter devoted to veggies and an awesome selection of alternative meat recipes featuring goose, duck and game, this book, an oldie but goody though it may be (which I promise is by no means an inference to Delia’s age), is simply a must for all kitchen bookshelves.
I’d love more imagery with its pages to accompany the recipes, true. But sometimes half the fun of doing anything in the kitchen is, frankly, having no flippin’ idea what the end result will look like!
