Nigella christmas

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

This easy, indulgent brownie recipe, inspired by Nigella, is perfect for a quick, crowd-pleasing treat. Rich, fudgy, and flecked with creamy white chocolate, these brownies come together with simple ingredients you likely have on hand. Enjoy a crispy top with a gooey center—ideal for any chocolate lover’s dessert cravings!

A vital part of the Christmas Eve dinner in Norway, these pork ribs have the tenderest meat and the crunchiest crackling imaginable. You have to take a leap of faith when making them, as the idea of letting the rind get so wet in the course of cooking goes against every bit of advice you may have heard thus far about the importance of keeping it dry. This method is an absolute revelation. You need a big old slab of pork belly on the bone for this, which requires a visit to the butcher. And —…

This prodigious pavlova recipe from Nigella Lawson will provide a stunning finish to any dinner or Christmas party.

I’ve got two recipes to tell you about to get you in the mood for celebrating the season.

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.

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…

Christmas pudding isn’t for everyone and, even though I have faith in my pudding’s ability to convert, there’s no point nagging or, indeed, fighting against real, die-hard antipathies. Besides, I have never met a child who likes Christmas pudding, and it seems unfair not to give a treat to everyone. The joy of this is that you can mix it all up in a processor while the Christmas pudding’s in mid-steam (I dash into the kitchen in the middle of lunch to do just that, with ingredients measured…

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 freshly baking.