Christmas cake

Guaranteed to make the house smell of Christmas.

You helped me to make this one, together with Philip and Judith. Everyone stirred, and made a wish with their eyes screwed up tight.

It makes an enormous amount of cake - enough for a 20cm cake tin, and a loaf tin - one to eat now, and one to feed and keep for Christmas. You'll need:

350g butter
350g soft dark brown sugar
350g plain flour
1kg of dried fruit - I used chopped apricots, quartered glace cherries, candied peel and some chopped prunes
5 large eggs
100g ground almonds
150g shelled hazelnuts
500g raisins/sultanas
5 tablespoons brandy (I wasn't allowed to use your Dad's armagnac, so I had to make do with some orange juice this time)
zest and juice of an orange and lemon
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Line your cake tin(s) with greaseproof paper (which needs to come a few centimetres above the top of the tin). I ignored this bit and did it in silicon moulds - which was fine, but made for a rather chewy edge to the cake. Stick the oven on at 160 degrees C.

Beat the butter and sugar together until they turn light brown and fluffy. This is so much easier in a mixer, but you'll feel very virtuous if you spend 10 minutes working out your arm muscles instead.

Add the eggs to the mixture, and beat thoroughly. Then gradually add the ground almonds, hazelnuts and the dried fruit, pausing now and again to let your junior helpers have a try of everything. Mix in the zest, juice and brandy, and then fold in the flour/baking powder.

Scrape into the tin(s) and marvel at the sheer amount of mixture. Bung in the oven for 1 hour at 160 degrees C, then turn the oven down to 150 degrees C and continue to bake for another 2 hours. You might need to place a sheet of greaseproof paper over the top of the cake if it looks like it's browning too fast.

Poke a hole in the cake with a skewer - if it comes out clean, then it's done. Leave to cool, and then remove from the tin.

Wrap in greaseproof paper then foil, and place in a airtight tin. I tend to feed mine a little brandy every week or two from now until Christmas - make a few small holes in the top with a skewer, and then drizzle a little brandy over the cake. It'll be nicely sozzled by the time you want to eat it.

Chicken in ale stew with thyme dumplings

This was one of those stew/casserole hybrids necessary to get rid of some of the odder ends of the vegbox (kale and swede). We spent the afternoon making Christmas cake, while this bubbled away on the stove.

You'll need:

a couple of chicken thighs per person
1 medium swede, peeled and cubed
1 large onion, sliced
a couple of carrots, chopped
three or four handfuls of kale, shredded
half a bottle of slightly flat ale, that your Dad didn't really like much
a good pinch of thyme
lots of black pepper
a good slug of olive oil

Drizzle a decent slosh of olive oil into the bottom of a casserole dish, and brown the chicken thighs. Decant to a plate for 4 or 5 minutes while you fry the onion until it turns translucent. Tip the chicken thighs back in the dish, and add the swede, carrots, ale, thyme and lots of black pepper. You'll probably have to add a mug or two of hot water (or even better chicken stock) as well, depending on how much ale is left.

Bring all this to the boil, and then simmer for an hour or so, until the swede is tender and the chicken is cooked. Add the kale, turn the oven on (to about 200 degrees C) and then get started on the dumplings.

You'll need:

vegetable suet
self-raising flour
a teaspoon of dried thyme
a little cold water

As it says on the side of the Atora suet packet, your basic dumpling involves a ratio of 2:1 flour: suet (so if you have 100g flour you'll need 50g suet). Chuck the suet, flour and thyme into a bowl and mix. Add a little cold water until you have a slightly sticky dough. Roll into small balls, flatten slightly, and place on top of your stew.

Bake in the oven for 40 minutes or so, until the tops of the dumplings have turned golden brown. Eat at once, fighting over the last dumpling.

Spicy apple chutney

Grandma and Grandad brought a bag of apples with them last time they came, so we now have a large batch of chutney sitting at the back of the pantry. It needs a couple of months to mature, but will then be fantastic with cheese and crackers.

The recipe is unashamedly nicked from the Domestic Goddess herself. It's ridiculously easy, as long as you don't mind a little bit of peeling and chopping.

Makes enough for 3 large jam jars (about a litre). You'll need:

500g cooking apples, peeled and roughly chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
2 red chillies, sliced
250g sugar (it's nicest with something slightly darker, like demerara)
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground cloves (you can leave this one out, if you find the taste a little overpowering)
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 tablespoon of ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
several good grinds of black pepper
350ml cider or white wine vinegar

Chuck everything in a very large saucepan, and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat a little, and simmer for 30-40 minutes, until the mixture's thickened.

That really is it - decant into some clean, sterilised jars (either warm from the dishwasher, or freshly washed in hot soapy water), and make sure the lids are on tight.

Leave to cool (the strange popping noise after an hour or so will undoubtedly be the seal in the lid popping out).

Lentil and bacon soup

I think this is probably your Dad's favourite soup. You quite like it too.

Makes enough for three. You'll need:

3 rashers of bacon, snipped into pieces
an onion, finely chopped
3 or 4 carrots, sliced
a leek, sliced
some chicken stock
3 handfuls of red lentils
dried thyme, black pepper

Chuck the bacon and onion in a large saucepan with a little olive oil, and fry for 5 minutes until the onion is translucent.

Add the carrots/leek and fry for another couple of minutes. Pour in the chicken stock, add the lentils, and scatter some dried thyme and black pepper with abandon.

Bring to the boil, and simmer for half an hour. You'll probably have to add some more water - it all depends on how much chicken stock you have, and how soupy you like your soup...

We ate ours with some doughballs hot from the oven and slathered in melted butter.

Halloween spider cakes

Needless to say, these disappeared very very quickly...

Makes around 12 really large cupcakes. You'll need:

3oz butter
2oz dark chocolate
1 tablespoon milk
8oz self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarb of soda
3oz light muscovado sugar
2oz caster sugar
150ml cream

And for the spiders:

12 prunes
24 silver balls
lots of liquorice laces
a little white icing (mix together a scant amount of warm water and lots of icing sugar)

Stick the oven on at about 180 degrees C, and line a muffin tin with 12 cases.

Melt the chocolate, butter and milk together in a small saucepan over a low heat. Leave to cool slightly.

Mix together the flour, bicarb and sugar (both lots). Then beat the egg and cream together, and slowly add to the flour mixture. Pour over the cooled chocolate/butter mix. It'll look terrible...but don't worry, just stir a little (but not too much).

Spoon into your paper/silicon cases, and bake for about 20 minutes in the oven until they've risen (and they rise a lot).

Leave to cool on a wire rack. Once cool, spread icing on the top, and assemble your spiders. Eat with gusto.